Dong Nai focuses on digitalizing archival documents

On November 11, Le Truong Son, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee and Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai Provincial People’s Committee, chaired a meeting on the implementation of archival document digitalization across the province.

Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai Provincial People’s Committee Le Truong Son speaks at the meeting. Photo: Ho Thao

According to a report from the Department of Home Affairs, following the recent administrative reorganization at the provincial and communal levels, Dong Nai province has compiled and handed over more than 155,300 meters of records and documents from local agencies and units.

 Of this total, 48,400 meters have been classified and systematized, while 106,800 meters remain unprocessed. Most records are in paper form, scattered and stored separately at various agencies and units because of limited office space for centralized archives. The province’s record management system remains inconsistent, with limited digital data and a lack of interconnectivity between agencies. There is not yet a centralized database to facilitate document retrieval and data sharing for management, administration, and public or business access.

Deputy Director of the Dong Nai Department of Home Affairs Ha Thanh Tung speaks at the meeting. Photo: Ho Thao

Pursuant to directives from the Central Government, the Provincial Party Committee, and the Dong Nai People's Committee, the Department of Home Affairs has assigned the Provincial Historical Archives Center to review and select archival documents under its management to advise the People's Committee on preparing a plan for digitization. The Department of Home Affairs is also developing two initiatives: the Project on management and processing of documents that have been inventoried by agencies and organization prior to streamlining the organisational apparatus and the Project on digitization of provincial records and documents following the organizational restructuring.

Deputy Director of the Dong Nai Department of Science and Technology, Nguyen Minh Quang, speaks at the meeting. Photo: Ho Thao

At the meeting, a representative from Vietel Customer Services Company (Hanoi) presented a technological solution related to document processing and digitization.

In his directives, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee and Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai People’s Committee, Le Truong Son, emphasized that the processing of records and digitization of documents have received close attention and guidance from both the Central Government and the Provincial Party Standing Committee. The Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai People’s Committee urged the Department of Home Affairs to accelerate the completion of these two projects. Once the feedback is gathered, a meeting will be held to approve it formally. The projects must be appropriately designed right from the very beginning to prevent obstacles in data use, retrieval, or interconnectivity.

While agreeing with the technological solution presented by Vietel, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Le Truong Son suggested that, to verify its effectiveness, a pilot implementation should first be conducted at the Department of Home Affairs or one of its subordinate units in an appropriate field and package. Additionally, the Department of Home Affairs was tasked with serving as the focal point to develop an implementation plan for related activities to ensure they are carried out in the most suitable manner.

 By Ho Thao – Translated by Hong Van, Thu Ha