#ArchivesRock on International Archives Day 2016

Parade of ‘Rederijkers’ making music in Middelburg (province Zeeland, The Netherlands). Engraving by Daniël Veelwaard and Jan Arends, ca 1784/1785. Zeeuws Archief/Zeeland Archives, Zeeuws Genootschap, Zelandia Illustrata, dl III, nr 988.

Let's celebrate June 9

International Archives Day 2016 #IAD16 is coming up! Like every year Ask Archivists and Follow An Archive organize a celebration event on Twitter.
With the celebration event we join the June 9 theme ‘Archives, Harmony and Friendship‘ of the International Council on Archives (ICA).
The theme of the annual Twitter event will be #archivesrock. It’s about music in archives.

Archives rock

Music makes a perfect match with the ICA theme ‘Archives, Harmony and Friendship’!
Remember the song ‘Ebony and Ivory’, a 1982 number-one single by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder?
“Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony | Side by side on my piano…”.
It contains music and lyrics worth to keep in an archive, performed by two friends singing and playing together in perfect harmony!
So let archives rock on June 9, International Archives Day, and contribute to Friendship and Harmony!

How can you let archives rock?

• Music performances and/or instruments on photographs, engravings, paintings, etc.
• Music scores and/or sheet music
• Books about music
• Soundtracks, video, film, etc.
• List of archives and collections about music
• Portraits of composers and musicians
• Records, which that tell about composers, musicians and “musical” institutions

 

The sound of archives

• Make any kind of noise in an archive depot
• Rustle with paper
• Close the heavy door of the archive depot
• Turn the wheels of the shelves
• Put an archival document in/out an archives box
• Type an inventory list
• Record the silence of the reading room

 

Be a musician yourself and/or with others

• Sing and/or play music in harmony with your colleagues and/or visitors
• Invite children/adults to sing with you in the archive
• Organize a musical event, tape it and put it on Twitter
• ….or do a flashmob?

Music in archives, sounds in archives, it’s all possible to make #Archivesrock on June 9!

 

Your contribution, your choice

And finally – your contribution could naturally also be musical documents of huge importance and great archival beauty.
It is your choice, and we look forward to your contribution.

 

Join International Archives Day on Twitter!

We hope lots of archives, archivists and all people who love archives will join.
Let us show together how music can make the world a harmonious place to live together in friendship and how archives play a vital part in documenting the history of music.

 

Other platforms

Twitter is the main platform for the event, but you can do #archivesrock on most other platforms too. Show of your sheetmusic on Instagram, take the opportunity to test the new Facebook Live video featuring archival sound, write a blogpost… but be sure to to tweet about it ;-)

 

Organization

This Twitter event #IAD16 #archivesrock is organized by Follow An Archive and Ask Archivists, managed by Anneke van Waarden-Koets (The Netherlands) and Charlotte Jensen (Denmark).
The idea for the theme ‘the sound of archives’ came from the German archivist Thomas Wolf. We added music, mixed it with the sound of archives, and here it is, especially for all our archives friends: a harmonious theme to celebrate International Archives Day: #archivesrock!

Entry of baptism for the world-famous Danish composer Niels Wilhelm Gade, 1817. He was co-founder of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he became the first Director General. In 1854 he wrote a “weddingwaltz” for a play and didn´t think much of it. But even today, it is used at almost every Danish wedding and silver/gold wedding aniversary.

Texts about #archivesrock on #IAD16 in several languages

Archivists from several countries in the world wrote blogposts about the Twitter event #archivesrock on #IAD16 in their own languages. Thank you very much for your great translation work, colleagues! Much appreciated!

Blogpost in German
Blogpost in Dutch
Blogpost in Danish
Blogpost in French
Blogpost in Polish