Archives Day
The day of the archives is one since 2001 regularly conducted event form with which archives in the Federal Republic of Germany and Switzerland present to the public. Similar events take place in other countries under similar or the same names.
The day of the archives in Germany
The initiator of these nationwide, decentralized open days is the Association of German Archivists eV (VdA) . Model of the event, which is also comparable in France , Switzerland and some Eastern European countries, such as B. Poland and Hungary , exists, is the Open Monument Day , the German contribution to the European Heritage Days proclaimed by the Council of Europe in 1991 , but also the International Museum Day , which was first held in 1977.
With the Tag der Archiv, the German archiving system aims to give more attention to archival concerns in public and to improve the social acceptance of the archives. The archives as sites of culture and science aim to anchor the safeguarding and preservation of the archival heritage as a cultural asset for the study of the past and for the understanding of the present as their nationwide task and obligation in the public consciousness. Since 2009, Archive Day has always taken place in the first half of March because the Cologne City Archives collapsed on March 3, 2009.
With the Tag der Archiv, the archives present themselves as a service provider that is close to the citizens and open to all citizens. On this day, fears of the threshold of archives should be overcome and not only the archive magazines should be open to anyone interested, but also insights into the diverse professional profile of archivists as detectives of history and custodians of important information transmitted.
If the supra-local preparation and advertising of the day of the archives is in the hands of the VdA office in Fulda , the specific program design and implementation takes place on site in the individual archives themselves, some of which also cooperate with one another. The events on offer for the Day of the Archives are diverse, varied and original, they are aimed at both known and unknown target groups and range from individual counseling and practical exercises to group tours, exhibition openings and cabaret programs. The interested public can find an overview of events on the website offered by the VdA.
After the first day of archives on May 19, 2001 and the second day of archives on September 25, 2004, the third day of archives took place on 6/7. May 2006 for the first time under one motto: "The ball is round". In the immediate vicinity of the 2006 soccer World Cup in Germany, the motto was intended to draw particular attention to the archival records in the sports clubs, where there are always painful gaps in records. Therefore, information was given at the same time on how important documents of the associations can be saved in the archives as a historical source.
| No. | year | date | motto |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 2001 | May 19, 2001 | |
| 2. | 2004 | September 25, 2004 | |
| 3. | 2006 | 6./7. May 2006 | The ball is round |
| 4th | 2008 | 1./2. March 2008 | Home and foreign |
| 5. | 2010 | 6./7. March 2010 | On the trail of the hidden |
| 6th | 2012 | 2nd / 4th March 2012 | Fire, water, war and other disasters |
| 7th | 2014 | 8/9 March 2014 | Women - men - power |
| 8th. | 2016 | 5th / 6th March 2016 | Changing mobility |
| 9. | 2018 | 3rd / 4th March 2018 | Democracy and civil rights |
| 10. | 2020 | 7th / 8th March 2020 | Communication. From the dispatch to the tweet |
Switzerland
The day is organized by the Association of Swiss Archivists in Switzerland as "Swiss Archives Day" or "Open Archives Day" (2002):
| No. | year | date | motto |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 1997 | November 15, 1997 | |
| 2. | 2002 | November 16, 2002 | |
| 3. | 2007 | November 17, 2007 | |
| 4th | 2012 | November 3, 2012 | humanly, all-to-humanly |
| 5. | 2017 | June 9, 2017 | Connect archive ∞ |
See also
literature
- Jens Murken: The benefits and disadvantages of the day of the archives for the archives. An evaluation . Potsdam 2005 (Potsdam, University of Applied Sciences, 2005), (PDF; 505 KB).
- Clemens Rehm: Archive Day 2008 - “Home and Foreign”. Interim balance of an event form. In: Archivist. Vol. 61, H. 4, 2008, ISSN 0003-9500 , pp. 446-451, online (PDF; 2.6 MB) .
