Archivists in communion
El Rey alentó a los archiveros a reforzar su
relation con los avances tecnológicos
ICA Congres Sevilla
CONSEIL INTERNATIONAL
DES ARCHIVES
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
ON ARCHIVES
ICA Congres Sevilla
[i]
Door Eric Ketelaar
Aan Eric Ketelaar de eer het congres in
Sevilla te openen. Volgens veel aanwezigen
deed hij dat op indrukwekkende wijze.
Voor allen die er niet bij konden zijn nu in
het Archievenblad de integrale tekst van
zijn openingsspeech.
That illustrious son of the great city of
Seville, the poet Vicente Aleixandre, said,
when he accepted the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1977: "Nuestro ser sólo
alcanza su verdadera individualidad
junto a los demas, frente al prójimo."
["Our nature achieves its true individu
ality only in community with others,
face to face with our neighbours."] And
Aleixandre went on to speak "de solidari-
dad, de comunión, y también de contras-
te." ["of solidarity, of communion, as
well as of contrast."]
These few poetic words contain the
essence of our gathering here in Seville,
for the XlVth International Congress on
Archives. Everyday, in every country of
the world, individual archivists, under
any name, working as record-keeping
professionals, are striving to perform
their mission: protecting the integrity of
records and archives, ensuring their con
tinuing accessibility and intelligibility,
promoting the widest possible access to
archival material, and providing an
impartial service to all users. But if we
would not work 'in community with
others', our individual endeavour to en
sure the preservation and use of the
world's documentary heritage would be
without fruit. We archivists have to work
'face to face with our neighbours', co
operatively with other members of our
own profession and with members of
other professions, within institutions,
but also crossing institutional bounda
ries, communicating and being in com
munion, nationally and internationally.
The archivist's world is really 'one world',
as Solon Buck, Archivist of the United
States and the founding father of the
International Council on Archives, said
more than fifty years ago.
But, as Vicente Aleixandre reminded us,
solidarity and communion also entail
the recognition and understanding of
Don Juan Carlos visité también la muestra «De la Briijula a Internet»
En e) mismo acto de inauguration
también tomaron la palabra la minis-
tra de Educación, Cultura y Depot -
tes. Pilar del Castillo, quien centró
su intervención en el proceso de mo-
demización que han vivido en los
ültimos anos los archivos espanoles.
hecho que les ha situado a la van-
guardia de todo el tnundo, el interés
que Espana muestra en el Comité In
ter nacional de Arch ivos por el dcsa-
rrollo de las ramas regionales de la
archivistica y la próxinia presenta-
ción, en el rnarco del XIV Congreso
Internacional y de la Norma ISAD
(G) —que se presentara en im agora
el proximo lunes 25 de septiembre—
un trabajo pionero de los archiveros
espanoles.
Representante del ambito cientifi-
co. el investigador Geoffrey Parker
fue el encargado de leer la conferen-
cia inaugural. En ella dedicó pala-
bras de alabanza de los profesionales
espanoles y de las diferentes instala-
ciones archivisticas del pais. Una
afirmación a la que ha llegado, se-
gt'tn dijo. «tras seis lustros de invosti-
gaciön en centros de todo el mundo».
La mesa se completaba con la pre-
sencia del alcalde de Sevilla, Alfredo
Sanchez Monteseirin, el presidente
del Parlamento Andaluz, Javier To-
n ot- Wol-, w ol 1lienniTOi.lr.nl.. f'r.
contrasts. Only if we acknowledge the
diversity of opinions, beliefs, and values,
can we really arrive at communion. This
holds true especially in an international
environment such as an ICA congress, a
regional branch, a section or a committee.
In the four-year interval between two
International Congresses on Archives
ICA lives through its regional branches,
sections, and committees. But, as Presi
dent Favier remarked at the Montreal
congress in 1992, the hundreds of
specialists who work in ICA bodies are
not working for other specialists: they
work for all archivists, and thus all profit
from their work.
That solidarity, that communion culmi
nates every four years at the Interna
tional Congress on Archives.
Today, in Seville. Four years ago in
Beijing, where more than 2600 delegates
from 130 countries and territories shared
an unforgettable experience at the XHIth
International Congress on Archives.
To prolong that experience, our Spanish
hosts wanted to link the Seville congress
with the Beijing congress. 1 know that
President Wang Gang, who to his utmost
regret is prevented by his ministerial
duties from being present here in Seville,
El Rey Don Juan Carlos met in zijn gevolg ook
Eric Keletaar (tweede van rechts).
had wanted especially to congratulate
the Spanish hosts for including in the
programme an assessment of the Beijing
congress.
Let me therefore, give both his congratu
lations and mine. This event has been
organized, like all of the professional and
cultural programme of the congress, with
all the compassion and sensitivity that
is rooted in Spanish civilization. We
-the 3000 participants- are grateful to
the Organizing Committee, under the
leadership of Vice-President Elisa de
Santos Canalejo.
Today we celebrate fifty years since ICA's
first International Congress on Archives.
At that congress, ICA's first president
Charles Braibant (Directeur des Archives
de France) pleaded that the archivist
should have a dynamic role in the cre
ation and maintenance of (what he cal
led) 'warm archives', the current records
still in the administration. And in his
address at the second congress in 1953
he once again emphasized the duality of
the archivists' mission, while regarding
the historical element as the most signifi
cant. His successor as ICA president,
10
archievenblad
november 2000
Graswinckel (General State Archivist of
The Netherlands), gave even more
importance to current records in his
opening speech. 'The archivist,' he said,
'is someone who first of all thinks of the
future'. Therefore he has to give much
attention to the creation of archives.
'Living archives' as Antonio Matilla
Tascón named them, in his report to the
Vlth International Congress on Archives,
that met in Madrid in 1968. That con
gress established the fame of hospitality
and organizational efficiency of the
Spanish archivists and the Spanish archi
val administration in organizing ICA
meetings. Many such meetings were to
follow, including the 26th International
Conference of the Round Table on
Archives, Madrid 1989.
The Madrid congress was a landmark in
international archival policy because in
formulating the general standards for
access to archives - including the thirty
year rule -, the congress made an immen
se step towards liberalization of access.
The Spanish constitution guarantees
"access by the citizens to the administra
tive archives and registers" as well as
"access to culture, to which all have a
right." It is very appropriate that at this
international congress in Spain ICA cele
brates the recent adoption by the
Council of Europe of a comprehensive
recommendation to all governments
regarding access to archives, a standard
for which ICA has worked very hard. The
European recommendation reaffirms and
codifies the principles, that were first
embraced by the Vlth International
Congress on Archives in Madrid in 1968.
If there is no access to archives, archives
cannot be used. And if they are not used,
archives have no function in society, as
archives of the people, by the people, for
the people. Archives are the record of
human experience, of human accom
plishments and failures. They document
common convictions and endeavours
and reveal which convictions and
endeavours are exceptional ones - com
mon and exceptional at a given place, in
a given time. Across centuries and across
the world, we all share mankind's com
mon features as well as its exceptions.
Thereby archives, and access to archives
world-wide, are powerful tools to achieve
solidarity and communion. They also
serve to understand the contrasts
between cultures, nations, and peoples,
across the world and through time.
But archives cannot fulfill this role by
themselves. Without human care and
human intervention archives are devoid
of life, seemingly dead. They wait till
someone takes them from the past into
the present, infusing them with a prom
ise for the future. That person is the
archivist, who not only ensures preserva
tion, but makes archives available for use
- any use, by anybody, at anytime and in
any place.
I started by quoting from Vicente
Aleixandre's Nobel Prize speech. But
from a poet one should quote his poetry,
so let me end by quoting the first and the
last stanza of Aleixandre's 'Las palabras
del Poeta' ['The words of the Poet']. They
not only express the poet's mission, but
may well be considered to be an expres
sion of the archivist's charge:
november 2000
Nederlandse congresgangers voor de kathedraal van
Sevilla. Bert de Vries (plaatsvervangend directeur ARA)
houdt de Spaanse krant op met artikel en foto van
Eric Ketelaar. (Foto: Pieter Koenders)
Words remain dead, when not heard and
recorded. We archivists, too, preserve
sleeping words, seemingly dead, waiting
for some future moment when somebody
retrieves them in our repositories and
kisses them alive. And like the poet who
creates, archivists are committed to the
creation of authentic records in a mean
ingful context. We cannot restrict oursel
ves to waiting until, at some point in the
future, the records of the past arrive at
the archives. The records of the present -
archives of the future - need human care
and human intervention. An interven
tion which constitutes the communion
between the archivist and the creator of
the record, an intervention which is the
foundation of our archival heritage and
which ensures access to the memory of
mankind for future generations.
[1] Address delivered by the Acting President of
the International Council on Archives at the
opening of the XlVth International Congress
on Archives of the International Council on
Archives, Seville, 22 September 2000.
[2] Vicente Cabrera and Harriet Boyer (eds.),
Critical views on Vicente Aleixandre's poetry
(Society of Spanish and Spanish-American
Studies, Lincoln Nebraska 1979).
11
archievenblad I
Después de las palabras muertas,
de las aün pronunciadas 0 dichas,
iqué esperas? Unas hojas volantes,
mas papeles dispersos. iQuién sabe?
Unas palabras deshechas, como el eco 0
la luz que muere alia en gran noche.
En las noches profundas
correspondencia hallasen
las palabras dejadas 0 dormidas.
En papeles volantes.
iquién las sabe u olvida?
Alguna vez, acaso, resonaran.
iquién sabe?,
en unos pocos corazones fraternos.
After the dead words,
the ones still pronounced or spoken,
what do you expect?
Some flying pages, more papers scattered.
Who knows? Some words
undone, like the echo or the light that dies
there in the great night.
In the deep nights
the abandoned or sleeping words
would find correspondence.
Among flying papers, who knows
them or forgets?
Sometime, perhaps, they will resound,
who knows?
In a few kindred hearts.
(Transl. Harriet Boyer) Iri
