Certification of archival materials
Official authorities in Sweden must use materials and equipment which produce documents meeting the requirements in the Swedish National Archives Regulations (RA-FS).
SP is accredited body
The simplest way to select such material is to use a certified product. SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden is so far the only accredited body for certification in accordance with these regulations.
The following procedure is applied
- Testing shall be performed in accordance with the relevant RA-FS by a laboratory accredited according to ISO 17025.
- The manufacturer/supplier must have a system for quality control of the product.
- A manufacturer's declaration on conformity of materials sold on the Swedish market with the material tested above has to be given by the manufacturer.
- An accredited testing laboratory shall perform a supervisory control each year.
The certification rules are specified in "Certification rules for archival materials". This publication can be downloaded on this site.
Archival materials certified by SP
Products certified for use in the preparation of documents to be kept for long periods of time are listed, follow the link in the right margin.
Types of products that can be certified;
- papers
- inks for ink-jet printers
- colour copying machines
Certified products may be
marked "Svenskt Arkiv".
- printers (e. g. laser printers and ink-jet printers)
- colour printers
- pens
- toner cassettes for laser printers
- stamp pad inks
- microfilm
- file covers
- boxes
- drawing materials