Archive MEDARD was found in 2000 as an institution for digitalising andarchiving of the qualitative data. The impulse for creation of thearchive was the idea of building up the infrastructure institution,which could serve to qualitatively oriented social scientists andsupport the secondary analysis of qualitative data. Nevertheless thegoals of the qualitative data archive are not limited to cataloguingand processing of the data. MEDARD is also aiming to become a mediumfor professional and methodological debate about qualitative research,its ethics and problems connected to qualitative data archiving. Theintegral part of the archive’s agenda is a technical and softwaresupport providing assistance to researchers, who use moderntechnologies for digitalising and processing qualitative data. Thefoundation of qualitative archive was financed by the Grant Agency ofthe CR, which supported the project of building up the basicinfrastructure and the technical background for the archive. Nowadays,after the integration of MEDARD into the administrational structure ofthe Sociological Data Archive at the Institute of Sociology of theAcademy of Sciences of the CR, qualitative data archive steps into thenew era of its existence. The background and the infrastructure of therecognized and creditable institution and solid experience insociological data archiving contribute to improvement and expansion ofthe data services. During the last decade of 2005 the institutionalintegration of the archive and innovation of all services will befinished. Since the beginning of 2006 the archive will be fullyfunctional for all the data users.
Nowadays, after the integration of MEDARD into the administrational structure of the Sociological Data Archive at the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the CR, qualitative data archive steps into the new era of its existence
