Latin American Regional Branch – ALA

Asociación Latinoamericana de Archivos

The Association of Latin American Archivists (ALA) was created on April 6, 1973, in Lima, Peru, as a professional and cultural non-profit organization, which is considered one of the most active regional branches of the International Council of Archives (ICA). Currently, ALA is comprised of 21 nations, extending to the Ibero-American sphere with the inclusion of the Philippines.

The ALA seeks to encourage communication and cooperation among all sectors of the archival community in member countries, through organizing congresses, seminars and international meetings; the establishment of conventions and other instruments of cooperation between archival officers and national and international agencies; the dissemination of up-to-date and adequate actual standards and archival studies; and in general all actions which promote its purposes.

In recent years, there has been an accelerated growth in the comprehensive development of the archival activity of the Ibero-American community, due to effective collaboration among members, where ALA plays a leading role in organizing events that encourage the acquisition of new knowledge, as well as the exchange of ideas and experiences.

From June 2015, when Mexico assumed the presidency of the ALA, the objective was to promote new research topics and incorporate national, general, state, municipal, diplomatic and private archives, as well as associations of archivists and academics from different fields interested in document and archival management.