[1] Founded in April 1882 by the Danish appointed governor (landshøvding) of Iceland, Hilmar Finsen.

This move provided appropriate facilities to organize and preserve all of the archival materials acquired from various government departments.

These initial guidelines stated that an archivist will first consult the governor when records are determined to be unnecessary and ready for disposal.

These policies established the National Archives' role as the authority on records management for Iceland.

These handbooks include forms for following appraisal and disposal rules, which must be completed by an organization and submitted to the National Archives for approval.

[2] Appraisal guidelines focus on the preservation of records for legal and security reasons, as well as for research value.

The appraisal form presents several considerations to determine the value or need for the records in question: The National Archives of Iceland functions under the Minister of Education, Science, and Culture.

Collections of paper documents are received by the National Archives when they reach 30 years in age.

This resulted in the Archives expanding to new storage facilities to house government and institutional collections.