International Archives Day 2013 dedicated to archives in need

On of the first pictures of the destroyed city archives of Cologne. Author: F. Domahs, 2009.

Archives are a fantastic resource for us all. They help us grow in knowledge and understanding of past and present. They empower us to investigate the history we need and the stories we care about. Archives are necessary.

But not all archives are well

On March 3 2009, the city archives of Cologne in Germany collapsed and with it thousands of documents belonging to one of the oldest city archives in Europe. Holdings reached back to 1408/09 and the oldest document stored was from 922. A huge part of the archives was buried by the collaps. About 40.000 charters, collection of photo and film as well as some of the iconic medieval documents and a collection of seals were saved.

To rebuild or not to rebuild?

But although part of the collections have been saved, the municipality has recently decided to freeze the build of a new city archives. A decision, which has been critized by both the German Association of Archivists (VdA) as well as ICA, the International Council on Archives.

The archives in Cologne can be supported in different ways, among others this petition.

Let's support all archives in need

But we are almost certain, that there are a lot of archives in the world, which also need attention. Archives threatened by for instance consequences of climate change, lack of appropriate facilities or other negative influences.

#savearchives on June 9th

So, on June 9th support the archives in Cologne - and all other archives in need. Tweet about them, using the hashtag #savearchives, include blogposts, articles and petitions. We will gather links on the weblog of Ask Archivists and summarize.

Hopefully our attention and support can help #savearchives!

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Storify #IAD13 and #savearchives made by Karen du Toit, senior archivist at SABC in South Africa.

Googledoodle for International Archives Day 2013?

 

 

WE REALLY WANT GOOGLE TO PICK UP ON THIS – SO PLEASE HELP US PROMOTE THE IDEA! 

In 2011 and 2012 we celebrated International Archives Day on June 9th by doing a worldwide #AskArchivists / #FollowAnArchive event on Twitter. We would like to do it again – if archives and archivists support the idea. But this year we would like the day to be extra special.

During the past years, Google has used variations on their logo to draw attention to people and causes worth noticing. Among the doodles are little works of art highlighting things as different as New Year, Chaplins Birthday, Opening of the Arcropolis Museum, Singapore Art Festival and National Library Week. But it seems, that there has never been an doodle on archives.

So why should archives deserve a place on the worlds largest search engine? 

1) Archives contain the unique written memories of the world. Our collections are diverse, and contain records on paper, electronic records, sound, pictures and much more. But regardless of form, they are a vital part of our heritage.

2) Archives play a vital part in democracy. Without archives, the world would face immense difficulties in reconstructing our political, economic, social, national, local – or personal – history with a sufficient credibility.

3) Archives are for all. When conducted in accordance with the ICA code of ethics, archives ensure, that our history becomes diverse and open to a variety of interpretations: “Archivists should promote the widest possible access to archival material and provide an impartial service to all users.”

4) Archives provide resource for academic researchers and students, but they are also a fountain knowledge for all, and support livelong, self-directed learning. Whether driven by interest in local history, genealogy or other topics, archives are a place, where thousands of non-scholars gain new knowledge, skills and competences.

5) Google itself is in many ways related to archives, providing access to informations and helping people search and find what they need to grow in knowledge.  

So please Google, help us celebrate the content and mission of archives all over the world on June 9th which is the International Archives Day.

 

HELP GOOGLE WITH IDEAS FOR AN #ARCHIVESDOODLE

We all can help Google with ideas for an archives doodle! What do you think are specific ingredients for an archives doodle? Draw them, make a picture of them or write it down. Tweet your ideas from June 1 untill June 8 with the hashtag #archivesdoodle.

Will International Archives Day on June 9 be celebrated with a Googledoodle? 

Yes! We think archives earn a googledoodle on International Archives Day, June 9!

 

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#archivesdoodles created by archivists 

We got some real cool #archivesdoodles created bij archivists to inspire Google to do a googledoodle on International Archives Day June 9.
In the blogpost you will find two of them: on top an #archivesdoodle made by Charlotte S.H. Jensen (National Archives / National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark), and at the end of the blogpost an #archivesdoodle made by Thomas Wolf (SIWI Archives, Siegen, Germany).

Thomas made another one, a happy archivist in special designed #achivesdoodle grey working coat :-) :

And a Thomas made also a beautiful picture of all the ingredients of an #archivesdoodle:

We received two excellent #archivesdoodles from Bradley Headland (National Archives, Canberra, Australia). Number one:

and number two:

Charlotte Whitehead (archivist Bredon, Glos., United Kingdom) made a colorfull #archivesdoodle in code:

Lots of thanks to these creative archivists!
Now we wait and see if Google had enough inspiration to create a googledoodle to celebrate International Archives Day on June 9!

Beasts in your collections?!

Zeeuws Archief : Asian and African animals, 1770-1780. Cat.nr. HTAM-H-104.

What?!
"NO!", is our first response when people ask: Do you have beasts in your collections or depots? Of course not! We keep our depots very clean and take very good care of our heritage collections! No mice, no spiders, no flies, no rats, no silverfishes, no fleas, no bookworms, we don't give them any chance to creep in our collections and depots.

World fauna in our collections
That's what we think. But... we DO have lots of beasts in our collections and depots! Think of the huge seamonsters on oceanmaps, the very precise drawings of insects in fauna books, the sweet pictures of cats in albums amicorum, the loyal dogs at the feet of our rulers on paintings and sculptures. We have the entire fauna of the world in our collections!

World Animal Day, October 4th
On October 4th each year, we celebrate World Animal Day. Let's dive into our collections to search for colourful fishes. Let's make a safari tour through our depots to catch wild animals. Let's have a stroll through all the bookshelves to discover beautiful insects that hide there. Let's have a great flight through our storagerooms and catch up with some amazing birds. Make a silent tour at night to spot the very rare unicorn. And let's show all the animals we find in our depots and collections to the world on World Animal Day!

Twitter event #heritagebeasts
On October 4th, World Animal Day, Follow An Archive and Ask Archivists will organize a Twitter event: #heritagebeasts. We invite all heritage institutions to join us! So we ask the organizers of Follow A Museum, Follow A Library, Ask A Curator, Follow Heritage to join in and spread the word about #heritagebeasts to your followers!

Join #herigagebeasts at October 4th!
Of course all people are welcome to join the Twitter event #heritagebeasts on October 4th! Create a Twitter account and tweet the beasts in your favourite collection!

Let's have a beastly good World Animal Day on October 4th with the Twitter event #heritagebeasts!

Follow #heritagebeasts
Tweets about "#heritagebeasts"

Who wrote about #archday12?

Lots of archivists, genealogists, librarians, museumworkers wrote about #archday12. Great to read it all! Website community of Dutch and Belgian information professionals Archief 2.0 Dutch weblog De Digitale Archivaris by Christian van de Ven Dutch weblog My Heritage by Denie Dutch weblog Wat Van Waarden Is by Anneke van Waarden-Koets African weblog SABC Media Libraries by SABC Radio Archives Dutch weblog Brabant Bekijken by Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum (Provincial Archives) Dutch weblog Zeeuws Archief by Regionaal Historisch Centrum Zeeuws Archief (Provincial Archives) American weblog Errol A. Adams J.D. M.L.S' blog British website of Balliol College University of Oxford Scandinavian weblog Arkivformidling British weblog Kangarooth by Ruth Jenkins Musings of a librarian-to-be Twimmer trending topics Topsy Twitter profile for followanarchive - search the social web Twittertrends archday12 auf twitter

Let´s celebrate International Archives Day on June 9th!

It´s allmost there again! The greatest day of the year - International Archives Day!

We know it´s on a saturday - but let´s celebrate anyway! Let´s show off our archival holdings, knowledge and services this year. We invite you to tweet your most precious document, your best online services and finest webcontent, the coolest pictures of users socializing and using the collections.

Show us - and the whole twittersphere - what you´re proud of in your archives! Let us know if you´re in - and if you will answer questions from users again.

We´re looking forward to another great Archives Day on the tag #archday12

Valentine's Day 2012 in archives

Archives are full of love stories. So let´s share them for Valentine's Day!

We can find romantic stuff about deep and eternal feelings. Some may involve famous people and some convey the emotions of the everyday man or woman, others could be documents about love, that has gone bad. And the documents probably comes from all parts of society, high and low alike.

When we examine the collections, some of the greatest stories of love may not even involve a man and a woman. “Love” could also be the love of ones children, parents, God, siblings – or the love of a cause, that brings passion and great emontions into the life of an individual.

We believe, that YOUR archive has a lot of amazing stories about one of the most amazing human feelings in its collections. And we encourage you to share them on February 14th.

Put some of your documents of love on Flickr or Picasa, make a video for YouTube, create an album on Facebook… use any platform you like, just tweet about it, using the hashtag #loveheritage.

We hope you will play along – for the love of archives – and invite our colleagues in museums and libraries to join as well. We bet, that they have collections full of love as well!

If you´re joining us and want to share a romatic find or loving item from your collection, please use the comment box of the #AskArchivists blog to write the name and country of your institution, as well as your Twitterhandle.

Charlotte and Anneke

#AskArchivists Day: June 9, 2011

More attention for archives and archivists on twitter?
#FollowAnArchive Day was such a great day that we asked our followers: should we start an other archives action on twitter, i.e. AskArchivists? We got a lot of positive respons to our question. 'YES! It would be great!', 'More attention for archivists on twitter!', et cetera.

#AskArchivists Day
Well... Is't on! The new action on twitter is #AskArchivists on June 9th. On that day it is also International Archives Day, Organised by ICA, the International Congress on Archives.

Ask Away on #AskArchivists Day!
Follow @AskArchivists on Twitter
Find more information about #AskArchivists on the blog
Follow the hastag #AskArchivists on Twubs
The hashtag #AskArchivists is saved by Twapperkeeper.

Join #AskArchivists and have a great day on June 9, 2011!