The Korean government is planning to host the Seoul-Pyongyang Olympic Games on the strength of the successful hosting of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics. In this situation, thinking about how to manage the records produced ...
The Korean government is planning to host the Seoul-Pyongyang Olympic Games on the strength of the successful hosting of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics. In this situation, thinking about how to manage the records produced in the Olympic Games which requires tremendous budgets and human resources and have great influence such as an increase of the brand value of the host region and construction of infrastructure is important.
Records produced by the organizing committee of the Olympic Games held in Korea are transferred to the National Archives of Korea, which plays a role as both the central archives management institution and permanent archives management institution. So far, transferring the records of the Olympic Organizing Committee to the National Archives of Korea, the only permanent archives management institution in Korea, did not cause any problem. However, the establishment of local archives management agencies in Seoul and Gyungsangnam-Do posed the following question: should the National Archives of Korea have competence over records of the Olympic Organizing Committee.
The following possible problems may be caused when the permanent archives management institution that has competence over records of the Olympic Organizing Committee is transferred to and is managed under the National Archives of Korea. First, the value of the local records of the Olympic Organizing Committee records will be undermined. Second, because of the geographical characteristics of the National Archives of Korea in Daejeon and exorbitant concentration of records, utilization of the records will be difficult. Lastly, the fragmentation of records produced by the Olympic Games may be caused because of the divisional management caused by the emergence of local archives management institutions.
This study, therefore, proposed to transfer the records by designating a responsible permanent archives management institution like a local archives management institution to solve the ongoing problem in records management of the Olympic Organizing Committee. Through this change, records from the Olympic Games including the Olympic Organizing Committee will be comprehensibly managed and the local governments will be empowered by realizing archival autonomy. In addition, by letting local archives management agencies manage the records of the Olympic Organizing Committee, the expansion of utilization service can be facilitated by linking to records under the jurisdiction and using geographical closeness to the holding area.
To provide a ground for the previous suggestions, the legislation and standards of the Olympic Organizing Committee and similar temporary agencies were analyzed, and related papers were compared to derive possible problems that may occur when the records are transferred to the National Archives. The current status of records management of two Olympic Games held in Korea was checked by requesting information disclosure as well. In addition, to justify the transfer of the Olympic Organizing Committee records to the local archives management agency, research and analysis regarding the relatedness between the Olympic Games and host areas. The regionality of Olympic Organizing Committee records was also analyzed by examining the organization of the committee.Through the previous analyses, three reasons that support the transfer of the Olympic Organizing Committee records to the local archives management institution as a permanent archives management institution in the hosting region were proposed. The transfer will solve the current problems within the Olympic Organizing Committee records and imbue the residents of the host city a sense of solidarity and belonging. Those effects will thereby strengthen local autonomy; through the integrated management of Olympic records, a better way of the utilization of the records will be able to be suggested. In addition, the researcher believes that the suggestion will solve the difficulties of the National Archives of Korea regarding the utilization and management of records that were caused by managing a tremendous amount of records.