Association of German archivists

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VdA - Association of German Archivists e. V.
(VdA)
purpose Promotion of science, culture and vocational training through active and direct promotion of archives and information in the interest of the general public, the cooperation of all archives and archival institutions as well as archival science
Chair: Ralf Jacob
Establishment date: 1946
Number of members: 2400
Seat : Fulda
Website: Homepage of the VdA

The VdA - Association of German Archivists e. V. is a professional association for archives in Germany. The headquarters of the association and the office have been in Fulda since 2006 . The office has been headed full-time by a managing director since 2001. According to the statutes (new version of September 25, 2014), the purpose of the VdA is to "promote science, culture and vocational training through active and direct promotion of archives and information in the interest of the general public, the cooperation of all archives and archival institutions as well as archive science".

The VdA, which was called the “Association of German Archivists” until 2000 , was founded in 1946 and currently (2016) has around 2,400 personal and corporate members. It organizes the German Archives Day every year and since 2001 (every two years since 2004) also the nationwide Archives Day on a regular basis .

history

The VdA was founded on December 11, 1946 in Bünde (Westphalia), making it the first supra-regional and cross-archiving professional association for German archiving. Previously there were only regional (1896 Association of Thuringian archivists, Association of Scientific Officials at Prussian State Archives) or specialist group-specific associations (1924 Association of German State Archivists, 1925 Association of German Non-State Archivists).

The war damage and the dissolution of political structures after the Second World War forced the archives to make a fresh start. At the invitation of the British military government , 15 archive directors met in Bünde on June 25, 1946. At this first meeting, it was decided to publish a “Bulletin of German Archives”.

At a second meeting on December 11, 1946, an application was made to the military government to “establish a professional organization for scientific archivists in Germany”. Their tasks should be the preparation of the German Archives Day as well as the "getting in touch with the entire association of German history and antiquity associations ". This is considered to be the founding moment of the VdA. In the following year, the association was able to be extended to the American-occupied zone .

In the post-war period, the VdA board also assumed the role of the “Bizonal Archive Committee”, later the “German Archive Committee”. This should serve as a liaison body to the military governments and countries. In the 1950s the archive committee was dissolved and replaced by the conference of archives of the federal and state governments.

Membership in the association was originally intended only to be reserved for specialist archivists from the higher service . This, however, contradicted the aim of representing all archival sectors: In economic, church and foundation archives in particular there are numerous archivists who have a scientific, but no archival training. For this reason, the statutes in 1961 and 1978 were reformulated accordingly, so that only the inclusion of part-time archivists requires a special board resolution.

Chairperson

The chairman of the VdA is elected by the general assembly from among the members for a term of four years. He / she can be re-elected once .

Karl Bruchmann, Chairman 1961–1967
Term of office Chairman archive
1946-1952 Bernhard Vollmer State Archives Düsseldorf
1953-1957 Wilhelm Winkler General Directorate of the Bavarian State Archives
1957-1961 Georg Wilhelm Sante Main State Archive Wiesbaden
1961-1967 Karl Bruchmann Federal Archives
1967-1977 Helmut Dahm Archive administration NRW
1977-1985 Eckhart G. Franz State Archives Darmstadt
1985-1993 Hermann Rumschöttel Bavarian Main State Archives Munich
1993-2001 Norbert Reimann Westphalian Archives Office Münster
2001-2005 Volker choice Main State Archive Weimar
2005-2009 Robert Kretzschmar Main State Archives Stuttgart
2009-2013 Michael Diefenbacher Nuremberg City Archives
2013-2016 Irmgard Christa Becker Archive School Marburg
since 2016 Ralf Jacob City Archives Halle

Thilo Bauer has been the full-time managing director since 2001.

Specialist groups

Since the foundation, the equal rights of archivists of state and non-state archives was sought. However, the organization of the individual archive sections initially developed informally within the association. The economic archives had founded their own association in 1957, the "Vereinigung deutscher Werksarchivare eV" (since 1975 "Vereinigung deutscher Wirtschaftsarchivare eV"), but this remained closely linked to the VdA. In 1961 it was finally decided to change the statutes of the association in order to take account of the diversification in archiving in the VdA as well: Since then, the association has been divided into seven specialist groups. In 1978, the "University Archives and Archives of Scientific Institutions" were added as the eighth specialist group.

The members of the VdA are divided into eight specialist groups, which are mainly based on the archives :

The VdA Board is formed from the one to five members of these specialist groups.

Working groups

Working groups have been set up to work on topics across archives. There are currently six working groups on records of the 20th and 21st centuries, archival evaluation , archival pedagogy and historical educational work, training and professional profile, open archives and traditions of the new social movements. They report on their activities at the German Archives Day. The activity report is then published in the Archivar magazine.

Records of the 20th and 21st centuries

The working group Filing of the 20th and 21st Century is to update the auxiliary science of filing for analog and digital documents. His tasks therefore include a. checking and developing methodology and terminology as well as monitoring current developments. The aim of the working group is a "guide for archivists, records managers and archive users".

Archival evaluation

The archival evaluation working group has existed since 2001. Its main task is to promote communication on evaluation issues. To this end, theoretical recommendations should be developed and put up for discussion. So far, the working group has published two position papers.

Archive pedagogy and historical educational work

The working group on archival and historical education has existed since 1998 . Since then he has offered his own event at the German Archive Days. He also supports the archive pedagogical conference and works on establishing historical educational work and archive pedagogy as a permanent task in archives. He tries to give help for the practical implementation through methodical suggestions.

Training and job description

The training and job profile working group is working on the creation of a job profile that spans all archive sectors. After it has been worked out, the next task is to establish this with the appropriate multipliers ( Chambers of Industry and Commerce , Federal Employment Agency ) in order to counteract a future shortage of skilled workers.

Sub-working group FaMI / Fachwirt

In addition, a sub-working group " FaMI und Fachwirt " has been set up . This promotes the perception and communication between these two new professions. To this end, he organizes an annual workshop for the exchange of experiences at the German Archive Day, in which only trained or in training FaMIs are allowed.

Sub-working group for archival specialist tasks

The sub-working group for archival specialist tasks deals with the question of which activities are carried out by the various groups of employees in the different archive types and how they change in the context of the challenges facing society as a whole.

Open archives

The Open Archives working group set up in autumn 2016 emerged from the VdA's expert group on social media and public relations . He is dedicated to current developments in digital communication, collaboration and presentation options (social media and blogs) and their use in the archive and organizes corresponding events. The conference series “Open Archives”, which has been taking place since 2012, was first co-organized by the VdA in 2017.

Traditions of the new social movements

The Working Group on Traditions of the New Social Movements has existed since 2009. Its aim is to improve communication “between the different archive worlds” and to communicate the importance of these archives more intensively. In practical terms, the working group deals with the problems of free archives, the creation of a manual and support options from the VdA.

Events

The VdA organizes the German Archives Day at different locations every year. In addition to a large number of archival lectures, this also consists of advanced training events and workshops. The general assembly also takes place within this framework and the working groups report on their activities. The Archivistica, a trade fair for archive technology, outfitters and service providers, also takes place on the same site.

For Archive Day, the VdA sets the date and - in consultation with its members - the motto. It also offers the participating archives central public relations work in the form of poster and flyer forms.

Publications

The association's announcements appear in the journal Der Archivar , published jointly by the VdA and the North Rhine-Westphalia State Archive, Rhineland Department (Duisburg). The presentations of the archive days are printed in annual conference publications. In addition, publications on the archivist's job appear irregularly.

literature

  • 50 years of the Association of German Archivists. Balance sheet and perspectives of archiving in Germany. Lectures of the 67th German Archives Day and the International Colloquium on the subject: The role of archival professional associations in the development of the profession. 17th to 20th September 1996 in Darmstadt. Organized by the Association of German Archivists. (= The Archivist . Supplement 2) Siegburg 1998, ISBN 3-87710-186-0 .
  • Thilo Bauer: The VdA - Association of German Archivists eV in Thuringia. Looking back on four years of association work from Weimar (2001–2005) , in: "Oldest preserved with loyalty, new things in a friendly way". Festschrift for Volker Wahl on his 65th birthday, ed. on behalf of the Thuringian Archives Association by Katrin Beger, Dagmar Blaha, Frank Boblenz and Johannes Mötsch, Rudolstadt 2008, pp. 11–20, ISBN 978-3-00-024781-1 .
  • Helmut Dahm: The founding of the Association of German Archivists: On the 25th return of the founding day , in: Archivar , Jg. 25 (1972), H. 1, Sp. 5–8.
  • Statutes of the VdA - Association of German Archivists e. V. , in: Archivar , Vol. 61 (2008), H. 2, pp. 205-208.
  • The archivist. Bulletin for German Archives , Volume 1 (1947) to Volume 60 (2007) ISSN  0003-9500 .
  • Archivist. Journal for archives , since vol. 61 (2008) ISSN  0003-9500 .

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Statutes of the VdA .
  2. ^ History and members of the VdA .
  3. ↑ 50 years of the Association of German Archivists. Balance sheet and perspectives of archiving in Germany. Lectures of the 67th German Archives Day and the International Colloquium on the topic: The role of archival professional associations in the development of the profession. 17th to 20th September 1996 in Darmstadt. Organized by the Association of German Archivists. ( The Archivist . Supplement 2) Siegburg 1998, p. 1 ff.
  4. ↑ Specialist groups within the VdA .
  5. ↑ Working groups within the VdA .
  6. ↑ Working groups within the VdA .