On May 8, the archivists of the Kleve district met for their biannual meeting, this time hosted by the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer. The meetings of the working group take place twice a year and serve the mutual exchange between municipal archives, city archives and the district archives. Dr. Manuel Hagemann from the Archivberatungs- und Fortbildungs-Zentrum (AFZ-LVR), who supports the archives with technical questions as the regional consultant for the district of Kleve, was also a guest.
The agenda included various ongoing projects focusing on digitization. Among other things, the introduction of a portal is being prepared, which should simplify access to digitized data for archive users via the Internet. The working group is also working intensively on the question of how electronic files, which have already been introduced in many administrations, can be transferred to the archives and secured and made accessible in the long term. In this and other areas, the archives of the Kleve district and the neighboring districts are working closely with each other and with the municipal computer center (KRZN) in Kamp-Lintfort. However, the meeting also dealt with traditional archive work issues, such as how to protect historical documents made of paper or parchment from damage in an emergency. In order to better counter these dangers, many archives in the Kleve district joined forces a few years ago to form an emergency network that coordinates mutual assistance in the form of material and personnel in the event of an emergency.
The meeting ended with a guided tour of the storage rooms of the city archives of the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer in Venloer Straße.