International Archives and Archivists Weekly News Roundup – March 27, 2015

Posted on March 27, 2015 by iaartsaa

Our weekly roundup of archives-related news from around the globe

Go Inside East Germany’s Stasi Archives – Time interviews German photographer Arwed Messmer about his newly published book of images from the Stasi archives.
Archivists Unearth Rare Copy of a Map that ‘Changed the World’ – A recently discovered copy of William Smith’s 1815 map of England and Wales is now available online for the first time.
Les Archives en Afrique, un patrimoine culturel de l’Humanité – On archival efforts to preserve the “shared memory” between Africa and France. [In French]
#beautifularchives – The Asociación de Archiveros de Castilla y León (@AsociacionACAL) kicked off a project on Twitter this week to collect images of beautiful archives from around the world. Do you have a favorite?

International Archives and Archivists Weekly News Roundup – March 20, 2015

Posted on March 20, 2015 by iaartsaa

Our weekly roundup of archives-related news from around the globe

Naziverbrechen: Griechenland setzt bei Reparationsforderung auf Wehrmacht-Archiv: The Greek defense ministry released a statement last week that it is in possession of a 400.000 page archives of records from the German Wehrmacht, dating to the period of occupation 1941-1945. The records could help uncover specific aspects of the occupation, including the looting of antiquities by the Germans, said a Greek official. The Greek government released the statement in conjunction with renewed demands for German reparations to Greece. Reports published in German media were not very detailed and don’t explain the provenance of the collection, but it appears as if the records are on microfilm obtained from the United States after the war. The reports are not clear whether other sets of the documents exist in U.S. or in German archives.
Massive Coalition of Japanese Organizations Campaigns Against TPP Copyright Provisions: Japanese archivists join forces with academics, artists, and activists in protest against provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership that expand copyright protection to match US law (author’s life + 70 years).
Call for papers: The Section on Archival Education and Training (SAE) of the International Council on Archives (ICA) is hosting a conference on “Social Justice/Injustice in Archival Education, Research, and Practice” in College Park, Maryland on July 12, 2015. Paper proposals are due March 27, 2015.

Posted on March 13, 2015 by iaartsaa

Our weekly roundup of archives-related news from around the globe

Desmantelando Fronteras / Breaking Down Borders Webinar Recording:
The first installment of the webinar series titled, “Desmantelando Fronteras / Breaking Down Borders,” in collaboration with ACURIL (Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries) and dLOC (Digital Library of the Caribbean), is now online! Featuring speakers Margo Groenewoud from the University of Curaçao and Vidyaratha Kissoon Caribbean Information Resource Network, the webinar has been posted for your viewing pleasure. Please make sure to check out what wonderful and great work our peers are accomplishing, and stay tuned for more webinar series announcements!
South African boost for Gandhian digital archive project: An agreement has been signed between India and South Africa for digital images of the copies of ‘Indian Opinion’, a newspaper established by Mahatma Gandhi, to provide an authentic open source archive on the iconic leader’s life and times.
Citizen Archivists Portal launched by the National Archives of Singapore: NAS is asking citizen archivists to help transcribe and caption 3000 handwritten manuscripts and 3000 photographs.

Posted on March 6, 2015 by iaartsaa

Our weekly roundup of archives-related news from around the globe

Cologne: About 150 people gathered for six minutes of silence to mark the 6^th anniversary of the collapse of the Cologne City Archives on March 3, which resulted in two deaths. Initially, the construction of the new archives building was supposed to have been finished this year, but has been delayed until 2019. See also articles on the plans for the new archives building.
Vilnius/New York City: A recent AFP story on YIVOs Vilnius project to digitize and re-unite their pre-war archives, including the collections of manuscripts that was hidden in a Catholic church basement in Vilnius and saved by a Lithuanian librarian. Last year, the $5.25 million project was featured by the Jewish Week, the New York Times, and other publications.
Nigeria: Indispensability of the Archives for Development. Text of a lecture by Michael Omolewa, to mark the 60th anniversary of the National Archives of Nigeria held at the Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan on December 2, 2014.
Les Éditions du Net and the association for the history of the Dominican Order in Europe launch initiative to save Iraqi Manuscripts.