SINAR Chile Sistema Nacional de Archivos Catálogo en Línea Archivo Nacional de Chile

Overview

SINAR Chile (Sistema Nacional de Archivos) is Chile's National Archives System, established under Law No. 21.045 of 2017 creating the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage. The Sistema Nacional de Archivos is administered by the Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural (Serpat) and directed by the Archivo Nacional de Chile. The publicly accessible online catalog — launched in June 2023 — provides researchers and the general public with online access to descriptions and digitized documents held by the Archivo Nacional and participating regional archives.

History and Founding

The legal basis for SINAR was established by Article 33 of Law No. 21.045 of 2017, which created the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage and mandated the creation of a National Archives System comprising the Archivo Nacional de Chile, regional archives, and any private archives that voluntarily join the network. Following a diagnostic study of archival management carried out between 2018 and 2019, project teams identified the need to unify data sources and improve access to Chile's documentary heritage.

From 2022 onward, the SINAR technical teams, with support from Spanish documentation services firm DataLib, worked on implementing AtoM (Access to Memory), an open-source archival description software conforming to international standards (ISAD-G, ISAAR-CPF, ISDIAH). The online catalog was officially launched on 26 June 2023, with a ceremony led by Archivo Nacional director Emma de Ramón and the director of Serpat, Nélida Pozo Kudo.

Collections and Holdings

The SINAR online catalog provides hierarchical, standards-compliant descriptions of fonds and collections held by the Archivo Nacional Histórico, the Archivo Nacional de la Administración, and regional archives. Among the notable materials described are the Fondo de la Junta de Temporalidades de la Compañía de Jesús (1561–1800), covering Chile, Cuba, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, and Venezuela; over 1,400 descriptions of historical maps; and approximately 18,984 volumes of notarial records. The catalog also includes a Rapa Nui sub-collection with nearly 300 digitized ministerial and public documents from Easter Island.

Access and Usage

The SINAR catalog is freely accessible online at sinarchile.archivonacional.gob.cl and supports simple and advanced search, navigation by fonds, authority records, subject terms, geographic terms, and object types. Items with digital surrogates include downloadable scanned images. For records not yet digitized, in-person consultation is available at the Archivo Nacional's premises in Santiago.