Few weeks ago, ICA’s Deputy Secretary General, Conferences attended the German Archivists’ Association (VDA) Conference in Saarbrücken. The title of the conference was Archive ohne Grenzen.Erschließung und Zugang im europäischen und internationalen Kontext” (which translates as archives without borders or limits, description and access in the European and international context). More than 600 people attended the conference, representing the wealth and variety of the German archival landscape which includes not only the Bundesarchiv and the archive services of the various Lände but also the cities, universities, religious establishments, foundations and charities and businesses.
“It was a very interesting 3 days” Margaret Crockett reported” I had a slot to speak at the opening ceremony along with the representative of the Saarland government, the Mayoress of Saarbrücken and the previous Chair of the Swiss Archives Association, not to forget the keynote speaker Dr. Asfa-Wossen Asserate, the great nephew of Emperor Haile Selassie. Fred Van Kan, Chair of SPA, and I had been invited to meet him before the ceremony and he expressed great interest in ICA’s work with our African branches”. Ms Crockett’s message from ICA seemed well-received and Bernhard Post, the VDA’s representative on SPA, said that participants were pleased to see ICA’s representative at their conference and several people said they intended to come to the Brussels conference as a result of hearing about it there.
There was a special round table meeting for participants from outside Germany where representatives from Russia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands amongst others. Everyone said a little bit about what was currently happening in their country and ICA was quite well represented with EURBICA, SPA and Sae getting a mention along with the Annual Conference in Brussels and bookmarks with the details were distributed. The conference was very well organised with workshops, strictly limited to the number of participants that could usefully learn in a workshop environment, plenary sessions and smaller parallels. “The sessions I attended showed the wide variety of collaborative work across within the German archives network, and across borders with archives in other countries as well as with other professionals”, said Ms Crockett. “I was very impressed by the breadth of experience and depth of knowledge as well as the look and feel of some of the web-based information networks that were presented”.