In a number of instances the international co-operation of outstanding experts
produced a report which showed the way in which the archival community had
to go. In other instances issues which were entered upon internationally some
times became common property only after a delay of many years. Illustrative in
this respect is the way in which the archival community dealt with the develop
ment of computer technology. Since the early sixties automation advanced in
business and public administration. As early as in 1968, at the Madrid congress,
warnings sounded, exhorting archivists to prepare for the computer era. On the
thirteenth CITRA (1971) the lethargic attitude of the archival community was
denounced and a dreadful perspective of degradation of the profession was
outlined if archivists would persevere in keeping aloof from technical develop
ments. The Bautier report, written for this CITRA, caused a change insofar as a
working party was established to study the implications for archives of the new
data processing techniques.45
In some cases serious discrepancies transpired between internationally
acknowledged policy and national and local practice. For example, already in the
early sixties ICA accepted audio-visual records as archival records. In practice,
however, archival institutions were mostly reluctant to take them into custody.
The reasons are obvious: traditional archives (including those in so-called
industrialised countries!) are usually not equipped for an appropriate manage
ment of these materials, do not have the qualified staff required and are not able
to find the indispensable "support from above" to broaden their field of activity.
In stead of frankly admitting the fact that these problems can not be dealt with
immediately in a proper way the members of the international vanguard someti
mes seemed unable to resist the temptation of launching ideas which lacked a
sense of reality and which they themselves could not uphold at home.
In most cases help from Unesco was indispensable for publishing the results
of professional studies, manuals, dictionaries and bibliographies. In the early
seventies a coherent publication programme replaced the practice of ad hoc
editions. A substantial contribution to the exchange and spreading of ideas is the
publishing and dissemination of the proceedings of the quadrennial archival
congresses and annual (except in congress years) CITRAs. From the start the
proceedings of the congresses were published in ICA's yearbook Archivum. The
Actes of the CITRAs were no less meaningful but suffered from obscurity. Being
for many years published in French alone, they found their way easily to France,
Italy and Spain but even after 1983, when bilingual editions were introduced,
sales remained disappointing and the revenues did not meet the costs. At every
CITRA participants were admonished to buy the Actes in large numbers, but
these summons remained without result. At last a solution was found by intro
ducing (beginning from the 25th CITRA) an obligatory attendance fee for
participants of CITRA, in exchange for which every member would receive two
copies of the Actes.
Up-to-date specialist literature being a prerequisite for the advance of a
profession and the spreading of know-how, ICA has collaborated with Unesco in
the realisation of an ambitious, broad-based long-term Records and Archives
Management Programme (RAMP) (1979). This project reflected the idea,
endorsed by the General Conference of Unesco of 1978, that archives are not
only important as a part of the cultural heritage of a country but also for public
administration purposes.46 Since 1980 over a hundred surveys, guidelines and
studies have been published in English, French and Spanish and have found their
way, free of charge, to archivists in "new" as well as "old" countries. The RAMP
project is unanimously regarded as one of the most successful results of inter
national archival co-operation.
Co-operation with Unesco was equally crucial with regard to safeguarding access
to endangered sources by means of microfilming. The VHIth General Conference
of Unesco (1954) decided to put into action a mobile microfilming unit in
several countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Subsequently micro
filming actions were carried out in the Arab region and, with the help of a
second unit, in Southeast Asia.
Apart from these actions, microfilming was likely to be an acceptable
although expensive alternative for moving huge bodies of archives. Many newly
independent countries claimed in the sixties and seventies the restitution of the
archives of colonial administration which, at the end of the colonial era, had
been carried away to the metropolitan countries. Under the auspices of Unesco
a discussion was started on the sensitive topic of these "stolen" archives. The
XVIIIth General Conference of Unesco recommended member states to take
restitution of archives in positive consideration and to find appropriate settle
ments within the framework of bilateral agreements (1974). A few years later,
the Cagliari CITRA (1977) pronounced on the common responsibility of metro
politan countries and their former colonies to restore national archival heritages
and recommended that a central foundation should be established in order to
allot subsidies to microfilming projects which had received approbation.
A feasibility study (1980) indicated that 1-1.5 billion microfilm frames would be
required. It would take 32 million dollars and 20-25 years of work if only records
of "primary importance" would be filmed. It was clear, then, for the time being
bilateral programmes would be the only viable way of fulfilling even a part of the
wishes. So Spain, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom filmed for their
former colonies, Canada and Sweden assisting in individual projects.47 A Dutch
microfilm project to provide the Arsip Nasional in Djakarta (Indonesia) with
indispensable sources had already started in the seventies.48
DE PROFESSIE
2.10 Publications
45 From the establishment of a working party on an international level to national practice there remains,
after all, a long way to go, as is strikingly illustrated by the fact that (despite further international atten
tion to the problem under consideration at the Moscow and Washington congresses, 1972 and 1976) in
the Netherlands - not in every respect a backward country - serious attempts to tackle the problem started
only a couple of years ago. A languid attitude toward new technologies seems to be characteristic for a
majority among archivists. Meyer H. Fishbein, "Reflections on the impact of automation on archives",
168
JAN VAN DEN BROEK FROM BRUSSELS TO BEIJING
2.11 Microfilming
in: Miscellanea Carlos Wyffels, Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique (Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in België) 57
(1986) p. 170 speaks of "the antipathy of many in our profession toward automation".
4* Evans, p. 149.
47 Franz, "Mikrofilmprogramm", p. 13.
48 A.E.M. Ribberink, "Zwischen Jakarta und Den Haag", in: Friedrich P. Kahlenberg, ed., Aus der Arbeit der
Archive. Beitrage zum Archivwesen, zur Quellenkunde und zur Geschichte. Festschrift für Hans Booms (Boppard
am Rhein, 1989), pp. 30-35. Here: p. 32.
169
