Purpose and tasks - products of the organisation.
The Regional Archive is a government institution whose main task is the maintenance and making available of information. Within the Regional Archive the tasks are split into three fields: preserving, processing and utilisation. Every archivist has a number of tasks under his management and is responsible for the proper performance thereof. An explanation of the three task fields is given hereunder:

Preserving
Acquisition: ensuring that the archive is complete requires an active acquisition policy. It is the intention to bring all the government archives of the participants up until 1980 to the Regional Archive by 2007 at the latest. Upon arrival these must already have been cleaned up and be in an accessible condition. Inspections therefore take place regularly. In addition to the government archives an attempt is also made to acquire private archives and archives of clubs, churches and companies.

Restoration and preservation: the material which comes under consideration for restoration is kept apart. It could be that items are damaged by mould or by frequent use. For the protection of the material, everything will be transferred in acid-free packaging.

Inspection and advice: consultations are held regularly with the six municipal institutions with regard to the state of affairs of the inventorisation and the period for the transfer of these archives. With this, more and more account is taken of digital data. The storage of this will be a complicated and costly undertaking in the future, as a result of which it is necessary that this is already given serious consideration now.

Processing
Inventorisation: making archives accessible and with this the achievement of the motto ‘find without searching' forms an important task. There are various projects in progress to open up various collections.

Filing, transcribing and preparation of cartularies: the Regional Archive is by far the most consulted for genealogical research. For this purpose, volunteers have worked for many years on the general index. The information of all births, marriages and deaths has been transferred from the municipal registers  on to cards. The advantage of this is that the original books no longer need to be consulted. The Regional Archive also attempts to make sources accessible in a digital form for the visitors or the public via the Internet.

Utilisation
Reading room and provision of information: the reading room is the place where the visitor can consult the archive material. It is also the place where the many volunteers carry out their work. There is a reading room duty rota for the assistants. This duty involves helping the visitors with the finding of the information for which they are searching. The provision of coffee or tea, the maintenance of order, sales from the archive shop and the recording of copying costs etc. also fall under the reading room duty.

Under the provision of information also falls the answering of questions which come in via the telephone, fax or e-mail. Local authority support: the participating municipalities can at all times submit a request to the archive. The information officers may approach the archivists for research into historical facts or information for events or speeches. The municipal authorities are kept fully informed of special dates or facts. By sitting on municipal committees (Street names committee, archaeological advisory service) the archivists are closely involved with other historical or cultural aspects of the municipalities.

Contacts with cultural institutions: by means of cooperation and consultation with historical societies, museums and libraries, the undertaking of activities is stimulated. In this way the cultural heritage is optimally utilised.

Education: the imparting of historical awareness requires that people come into contact with the past already at an early age. Lessons are given and in the coming years attention will be paid to the compilation of teaching packages.

Arrangement of courses and lectures: in order to teach interested persons the skills of historical research, courses and lectures are organised regularly. In these, more experience can be gained in genealogical research and palaeography, and more is explained with regard to certain themes from the local and regional history. In addition, lectures are given about special subjects at the request of clubs and institutions.

Research and publications: research is carried out by the assistants and the results are published. This in order to create more historical understanding and also to obtain more name awareness. Projects (such as the Brielle by-laws and the Cadastral atlas of Voorne-Putten and Rozenburg 1832) are also published in book form.

Exhibitions and open days: cooperation with exhibitions is given by means of providing information or the lending out of material. In addition, the Regional Archive also organises exhibitions itself, such as at the annual National Archives Day. Furthermore, investment is also made in virtual exhibitions on the website.

Characterisation of the organisation
The Regional Archive of Voorne-Putten and Rozenburg (VPR) was established in 1998 by the merging of various collections and archives. Through this a bundling of a large number of government and non-government archives was created, as well as a large topographical-historical atlas and an extensive library.

Underlying the Regional Archive is the communal arrangement, which the six municipalities of the islands Voorne-Putten and Rozenburg and the Hollandse Delta Water Board have concluded. This arrangement is a joint desire to manage the cultural heritage in an expert manner. In addition, the Regional Archive functions as regional historical information centre with scientific tasks.

Structure and scope of the organisation
The Regional Archive falls under the Board of the Regional Archive of Voorne-Putten and Rozenburg. This board is formed by the mayors of the various municipalities and the chairman of the water board council (or their deputies). They determine, amongst other things, the budget and are kept informed of the activities by the Regional Archivist.

The Regional Archive itself has five permanent employees:

L.W. Hordijk (Regional Archivist)

A.A. van der Houwen (Deputy Regional Archivist)

B. Benschop (Archivist)

R.J.J. Dreuning-Borgmeijer (Administrative Assistant)

E. Lassing- van Gameren (Reading Room Assistant)

A group of around 25 assistants is thereby of service to carry out all manner of jobs, orders and research. The building is split into various areas. The reading room, two offices, a volunteers' area and a storeroom. The vault consists of four depots and provides space for four kilometres of archive. It is expected that the vault will become too small within a few years, partly due to the addition of large quantities of government archives from the period before 1980.