Although work in the field of preservation continued at the end of the 1980s in accordance with Soviet methods of organising work, certain changes can be observed in this period as well. The archive started focusing more and more on seeking qualified specialists and on working out the procedure for attesting restorers.

In the period of the restoration of independence in the 1990s, Japanese paper once again started being used in paper conservation in the history archives in Tartu. The Soviet work standards that had inhibited the quality of the work done started disappearing, and necessary equipment and materials were acquired with the support of foreign aid. The history archives gained employees who had acquired the profession of restorer-chemist at the University of Tartu Chemistry Department. Their knowledge helped to improve the level of conservation and familiarity with the materials and damages of archival records. The working out of the procedure for accrediting the profession of conservators and its professional standard, in which representatives of the archives also participated, is worth noting in professional development. This process began in 2003 and was spearheaded by the Cultural Values Preservation Council, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. Instructional materials from the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers’ Organisations (E.C.C.O.) and Great Britain’s professional conservators’ qualification system were taken as the basis for the standard and procedure for professional accreditation. The conferral of professional credentials started taking place in cooperation with the Estonian Qualifications Authority and the Canute Restoration Chamber. The job title of conservator started being used more instead of restorer in terms of official titles. Participation in the international cooperation projects Transition Metals in Paper (MIP) and COST D42 ‘EnviArt’ (European Cooperation in Science and Technology, chemical interactions between cultural artefacts and environment) provided the impetus for the use of calcium phytate treatment in the conservation of archival sources with ink corrosion damage and for determining the level of corrosion and the content of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the air of depositories. As a result of international cooperation, numerous important studies of preservation conditions were carried out in the National Archives, which helped to work out its preservation policy and strategy. The archive’s list of durable materials, its plan for dealing with threats, risk analysis, and its drawing up of numerous instructional materials, of which the Estonian-Latvian-British joint publication Atlas of Damage Descriptions of Archival Materials that was published in 2013 is worth noting separately, became important key words in its preservation activities. Rapid development also took place in the field of preparing backup copies and user copies. The archive succeeded in acquiring a complete set of the equipment necessary for microfilming and copying for Tartu and another for Tallinn. The launching of the Saaga project in 2004, the objective of which was to scan all of the history archive microfilms and create a digital user collection, has to be considered revolutionary. Additionally, family history materials that can be found at the congregations of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church were microfilmed and scanned over the course of ten years, which became accessible to all interested persons as digital images. Digitisation has indeed become one of the most important fields of activity in the field of preservation over the past fifteen years, which has significantly improved access to archival records and created better conditions for the preservation of the originals. By now, all parchment documents, seals, a large proportion of photographs, nearly 51,000 maps and 312,000 archival records have been digitised, which makes more than 22 million digital images in total on the web.

Working conditions as well as preservation conditions for archival records have improved considerably in the period of independence because five new archive buildings have been built. The completion of the new main building in Tartu in 2017 can be considered the most important of them. The situation that had lasted for nearly a hundred years, where Estonia’s oldest and most valuable archival records were situated in unsuitable conditions for long-term preservation, ended with the erection of the Noora building. The relative proportion of archival records that are properly preserved in accordance with required standards in the entire National Archives has risen to 88% by now. The one-hundred-year-old National Archives have by now become a modern preservation and conservation centre where people come from all over the world to gain experiences and to learn their profession.