IMF Archives: Finding Aids
Secretary's Department Records
Secretary's Department Records Division Records
Date(s): 1946-1992 |
Context
Name of Creator: Secretary's Department Records Division
Administrative/Biographical history: The Records Division began in 1946 as the Records Section in the Office of the Secretary, but soon thereafter became the Records Division. Its initial areas of responsibility included receipt, sorting, routing, and retention of all Fund communications. In 1948, the Fund, realizing that the Research Department was performing some of the same functions, centralized the management of the records in the Records Division. The Research Department also transferred custody of its records, along with its file plan, to the Records Division, and this file plan formed the basis of Central Files. Maintenance and development of Central Files soon became a primary responsibility of the division. The functions of the Records Division in the late 1940s included: the maintenance of the Central Files; Executive Board series and indexing; Distribution of Fund documents; Indexing; Records Management; Publications; and Annual Meetings. The main functions of the division did not change dramatically over time, although by the 1990s, the division's responsibilities fell into two categories: the ongoing management of the Fund's information resources in support of the mission of the institution; and the preservation of institutional memory as a basis for management and staff accountability. The Records Division was responsible for the maintenance and development of the Fund's archives until 1999, when this responsibility was transferred to the Technology and General Services Department's Archives and Records Management Unit.
Content and structure
Scope and content: Sous-fonds consists of two series from the Records Division: Annual Meetings Photographs, and Sound Recordings. The Annual Meetings Photographs Series includes photographs documenting historically pertinent individuals, boards, committees, and events that were either requisitioned by Secretary's Department staff or were collected by the Records Division archives and were authored by both IMF photographers and commercial photographers. The Sound Recordings Series contains sound recordings of a variety of meetings, including the Annual Meetings. Some IMF training sessions have also been recorded and are included in this series. This series has fourteen sub-series, arranged alphabetically by title of meeting.
Conditions of Access and Use
Conditions governing access and reproduction: Some of the photographs have copyright restrictions, primarily those from external sources, where those organizations still exist.
Under the Policy on Access to the IMF's Archives only archival materials that are 20 years old or older are open to researchers.
For re-use of digital archival documents where available, it is the responsibility of the individual to obtain permission from the copyright owner.