Archival Information Services encompass all activities that connect records with users to meet their informational needs. As the internet has expanded the space of Archival Information Services online, institutional websites have become a primary chan...
Archival Information Services encompass all activities that connect records with users to meet their informational needs. As the internet has expanded the space of Archival Information Services online, institutional websites have become a primary channel through which users access and utilize records. Since economic policy directly affects individuals' daily lives across finance, fiscal affairs, and industry, ensuring access to the records of economic policy institutions is closely tied to the transparency of policy administration. However, a systematic assessment of how economic policy institutions actually operate their websites as Archival Information Service channels has yet to be conducted.
This study aims to analyze the current state of online Archival Information Services provided by economic policy institutions, treating their websites as archives, and to develop recommendations for development. Drawing on the ARK (Archival Reference Knowledge) model (Duff, Yakel, Tibbo, 2013), four analytical dimensions were established: archives guidance, holdings composition and use, finding aid support, and outreach. Through a review of prior literature, 33 sub-elements were developed and applied to the websites of 70 institutions, including central banks, ministries of finance, and financial supervisory authorities from Financial Stability Board member countries.
The findings are as follows. First, only 13 of the 70 institutions (18.6%) operated an identifiable archives section, indicating that institutional commitment plays a greater role in determining service levels than statutory obligations. Second, user-oriented navigational resources such as website use guides (8.57%) and subject research guides (5.71%) were offered by only a small number of institutions. Third, this low level of finding aid support is structurally linked to the lack of descriptive information about the records held by these institutions. Fourth, functional services such as reproduction request forms (0%) and reference service inquiries (2.86%) were rarely available, creating a disconnected user experience. Fifth, current communication channels including social media, newsletters, and chatbots are predominantly used for institutional promotion rather than for disseminating archival content or supporting record retrieval.
Based on these findings, recommendations for development are proposed for each dimension. In the archives guidance dimension, scattered information on access procedures, restrictions, reference services, and copyright should be consolidated into a dedicated menu. In the holdings composition and use dimension, overview and descriptive information about holdings should be supplemented. In the finding aid support dimension, institutions should build navigational resources, introduce advanced search functions, and leverage chatbot and AI services to support record retrieval. In the outreach dimension, current communication channels should be leveraged for archival content distribution, and institutions should develop curated collections, publications, and oral history records.
This study contributes to the field by quantitatively analyzing the state of online Archival Information Services among economic policy institutions and synthesizing best practices into practical recommendations. Future research is encouraged to broaden the scope of archival research across diverse economic sectors, examine users' information needs and behaviors, and conduct in-depth investigations into individual institutions' archival development processes.