Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

3. Session / Séance. Sharing of Experience and Exchange of Staff / Partage d’Expériences et Echange des Personnes - Oldenhage, Klaus: Scope and Aims of Mobility. A German View / Portée et buts de la mobilité. Un point de vue allemand (english 279 - français 285)

results of the work of the ICA Ad-hoc-commission on descriptive standards should be translated in time into as many languages as possible. Otherwise the chances that these results will be well received and applied are too low. The same is mutatis mutandis right in the field of archival legal matters.

b) Exchange Programmes and international training Courses

The responsibility to establish exchange programmes and training courses does not only lie with UNESCO, ICA, OAS, EC and governments. Why should cities, regions, churches, companies and others who run archives not set up such programmes, too? We need a programme for differing exchange programmes and training courses after we shall have determined our different needs. And then, we shall have to set up priorities. And „we“ means „ICA“.

c) Archival technical matters

The real challenge of our and surely of all coming generations of archivists will be preservation and conservation. In this respect there are no language barriers. Bad paper or nitrate films do not depend on language and/or political borders. I do not have the time to tell you in all details how difficult it was to get 5 000 DM to support the tests of the University of Manchester concerning the vinegar syndrum with acetat films. We have to set up an international conservation programme to do our job - It is high time. For this programme we need big money. We shall need more money than one country can afford. The fact that this aim will not be easily reached must not lead to the „right“ not to try. Mobility in the very meaning of the word is needed.

d) Archivists and Historians - the old traditional linkage

The old traditional linkage between history and archival science is to be kept. My own experiences with two German tragic pasts, the Nazi and the Communist, confirmed my view that our modern societies depend more than they admit on experts who can explain the past without taking over the role of the politicians. I profited from my Washington time when I could inform my government on US records containing information on German chemical warfare ammunition.

Exchange programmes should by all means comprehend the task to provide archivists with special knowledge of sources kept in foreign archives. Many historians would gladly follow the good advice of archivists on which foreign archives are to be consulted concerning this or that subject.

9. Conclusion

We have to set up priorities. We shall not get money just to initiate programmes in order to prove that we know what mobility would mean ideally. We need mobility to do our job best. The first task of the archivist always was, is now and will be in the future to preserve archives. I should be very happy if this conference would recommend „mobility of archivists“ as a, if not the tool to prepare an international programme for preservation and conservation. For such a programme we shall, of course, need other professionals, too.

3. Session/Séance: Oldenhage, Scope and Aims of Mobility. A German view

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