Interior ministry brings seven Peruvian archivists to Korea for final year of training

The interior ministry said Monday that the National Archives of Korea has invited seven employees of Peru's national archive for a ten-day training program, the final installment of a three-year effort to help the Andean nation build a digital records-management system.

The program runs from Nov. 1 to Nov. 10. Twenty Peruvians took part in the introductory course in the first year and 34 in the practical course in the second, with the current seven forming the advanced track.

Peru is the first single Latin American country for which the archives has run a phased, multi-year training program. The curriculum follows a 2023 records-management agreement between the two governments, under which Seoul agreed to support Peru's digitalization and public-administration overhaul.

This year's sessions focus on the Peruvian agency's own priorities, identified through a survey of its needs, and cover digital transformation policy and strategy, the design of long-term preservation systems for digital records, the collection and management of web records and administrative data sets, and cases of building records systems with open-source software. At Peru's request, the program also covers Korea's preservation policies and storage conditions by media type, with hands-on work in conserving and digitizing audiovisual records.

Participants will hold talks with Korean experts on the challenges of hybrid environments where digital and paper records coexist, and will draft an action plan suited to Peru's circumstances. Visits are scheduled to the digital government exhibition center, the presidential archives, the justice ministry's records office and the UNESCO International Centre for Documentary Heritage.

Using the strategies drawn up during the residency, the two sides plan to identify follow-up projects, including development of Peru's digital records-management system.

"Establishing policies and action plans that fit Peru's administrative environment and records-management conditions is the most important thing," Lee Yong-chul, director of the National Archives of Korea, said. "We will spare no support so that the results of the three-year program are put to practical use in the field."