GANJINE-YE ASNAD
Year:2010 | Volume:20 | Issue:3 (79)|Papers Count:7

In the Qajar Era, due to weaknesses in the economy, information, and technology Iran was unable to explore and exploit its oil reserves on its own. Therefore, just a few years after the exploitation of the first oil well in the world, foreign experts entered Iran to exploit its rich oil reserves.In the contemporary history of Iran, granting oil concessions has been recorded as a negative for the shahs of Qajar Dynasty. By granting oil concessions, the rights of the nation were conceded to aliens, the economy of the country faced many losses, unpleasant legal, political, social, and economic consequences resulted, and the influence and power of the foreigners was strengthened and stabilized in Iran.This paper aims to take a historical and legal look at oil contracts of the Qajar Era based on existing records and resources. It first reviews different types of oil contracts and the legal nature of concessions and then briefly mentions the oil concessions of the Qajar Era.

One of the books written in the era of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was The History of Persian Kings (Roozmah-e Khosrovan-e Parsi) by Mirza Ahmad Vaqar Shirazi. The author claimed that he wrote it in pure Persian.This paper presents research on a manuscript of The History of Persian Kings and sets out to study this manuscript from various historiographical viewpoints. Reviewing the methodology and viewpoint of Vaqar Shirazi in historiography and presenting a complete analysis of the preface of the book are among the main purposes of this article. Furthermore, one of the major subjects discussed in the paper is the intellectual climate of the era in which Vaqar Shirazi lived. Archaistic trends are among factors influencing the writing style in this era.

From a long time ago, petitioning was a part of the political and social behavior of the Iranians and it can be considered as a part of their national culture. This culture was common both before and after the advent of Islam in Iran. During the median era and centuries after that, governments endorsed the culture of petitioning by instituting judicial courts. Adjusting to Western culture during the Qajar era created wide displacements in the culture and civilization of Iranians, however, this did not disturb the culture of petitioning, rather this culture continued and became more widespread with the growth of mass media in different forms, such as newspapers, and with the foundation of new institutions such as the Great Royal Consultation House and governmental ministries. Following the Constitutional Movement and the institution of the National Consultative Assembly, the culture of petitioning became a dominant culture, not only for making lawsuits but also for dealing with everyday issues and problems of the lower classes. With the formation of the Commission of Petitions in the National Consultative Assembly, dealing with people's petitions became one of the main functions of the legislative institution in Iran. Although this function originated from a misinterpretation of the legislative institution’s purpose, it resulted in the creation of a unique study resource for historians in the field of social history: the "petition records".The findings of the present study show some of the reasons for such a misinterpretation of the legislative institution’s purpose. By making a comparative review of the petitions of the era of the National Consultative Assembly with those of the the era before the formation of the Legislative Branch – especially in the Naseri Era - the study analyses people's understanding of the legislative institution. Another part of this article presents a new categorization of the content of these records and draws attention to their other features. Thus an effort is made to analyze the status and importance of these records as a resource for studying social history and the history of lower classes.

Granting concessions to foreigners and Iranians was one of the economic characteristics of the era of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. After his failure in granting concessions to foreigners and therefore losing opportunities to generate income for his treasury, Naser al-Din Shah started to sell public lands to the privileged and upper class. Perhaps, as the Shah reasoned, endowing public lands would improve the status of agriculture and develop the country. However, the locals involved turned the conditions to their own profit. Isfahan, the capital city of Iran during the Safavid Era, was considered as a rich resource for agricultural reforms in terms of its public lands. The income of this region was a major factor in the court system of Isfahan and therefore these public lands yielded considerable income for the government, courtiers and those wanting to buy these lands. This led to continuous disputes among courtiers and the locals and therefore the ownership of lands in Isfahan was in a state of chaos for several years.

Digital archives have become one of the main channels for open access to scientific information at a global level and have established their position in the scientific and economic development of nations. This is the result of modern information and communication technologies. Recognising these changing realities, the impact of current technologies and their undeniable role in creating digital archives, as well as the role that both traditional and modern archives have in the scientific, cultural and economic improvement of the information society, this paper is presented in two separate, but related parts. In the first part, in order to study patterns of archival evolution which eventually lead to the establishment of digital archives, we analyse archives and their modern formats, digital archives, from different viewpoints. Then we study the factors which have arisen from modern technologies and which are the primary basis for the formation of digital archives. The features of digital archives and the methods for sustaining and preserving electronic records for long periods of time, and also challenges for research about digital archives and digitalization of records as the social and cultural memory of a nation, are among most important issues reviewed in this paper. Another part of this paper is devoted to the undoubted role of archives in national, scientific and economic development. Therefore in order to study this issue, once again we mention the seemingly new role which has been given to archives in the information society by the modern technologies and that is the role that archives have in the guidance of knowledge management and sharing intellectual assets.

Considering basic concepts of preventive preservation and measuring the most important influential indicators in proposing an optimum method for preservation and maintenance of historical and cultural works, this paper tries to present methods for proper preservation of historical-cultural works existing in the repository of Malek National Museum.The effects of environmental conditions including relative humidity, temperature, light, gas pollutants and solid particles in the environment of the Malek National Museum and also the consequences of these factors such as acidity changes in paper works, and the effect of fungi and proper environmental conditions for the development of microorganisms have been experimentally investigated. The aim of conducting these experiments was to compare the extent of each environmental factor in the environment of the repository room of the museum with the standards for environmental conditions in the Malek National Museum and to eventually determine the damaging factors in this museum. To do so, all influential environmental factors such as light, relative humidity, temperature, environmental pollutants, and microorganisms were monitored in a specific time range using instrumental analysis methods.

This project aims to determine the most important descriptive elements required in worksheets for arrangement and description of archival records. The research employed a descriptive survey design and a researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. The research population included 7 experts in the field of archives, especially archival arrangement and description. The descriptive indicators of the questionnaire have been extracted through the study of the descriptive elements existing in the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)), Canada's Rules for Archival Description (RAD), the Commonwealth Record Series (CRS) System in Australia, and the National Archives of Iran's Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archival Records. The findings of the research show that six necessary elements of the International Standard for Archival Description are also important from the viewpoint of archival experts of Iran. Furthermore, it was indicated that the elements selected by the archival experts of Iran were mostly in harmony with descriptive elements of the International Standard for Archival Description. Therefore, it seems necessary to benefit from international standards and experiences in addition to local requirements.