The 84^th German Archive Conference will be held in Magdeburg from 24^th – 27^th September. The theme of the largest European congress devoted to the archiving profession will be New Ways of Accessing Archives – User, Usage, Usability.

Archivists and all other interested parties will spend four days discussing current developments in the archiving sector as part of a packed timetable of talks, plenary events and workshops. This year’s focus will be on using archive material, the methods of which are changing in line with digital innovations, and on the resultant expectations being placed on archives. Online search procedures are now taken for granted, users demand convenient research methods, and new communications tools are now available.

One revealing example of the new understanding of what an archive is and can offer and the new opportunities available to users is provided by a new nationwide platform, Archivportal-D, whose official launch will form a highlight of the Conference. This openly accessible portal provides information on access and digital material from German archives free of charge. Individuals can access all the search facilities of participating archives as they go about their specialised research within a user-friendly system. Archivportal-D is being developed with funding from the German Research Foundation and is conducting its first single-sector application using data of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: all information available on Archivportal-D is made available via the open programming interface of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and presented in a new, archival context.

The public launch of this nationwide archive portal will be accompanied by numerous other talks and events relating to the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and Archivportal-D:

Wednesday 24^th September 2014, 6.30pm – 8pm, Hall 2, Großer Saal
Opening event of 84^th German Archive Conference
Opening address: Interplay. Informational infrastructure and successful research - past, present and future
Sabine Brünger-Weilandt (Director and Managing Director of FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur GmbH)
This address will be followed by the official launch of Archivportal-D.

Thursday 25^th  September 2014, 9am - 10:30am, Hall 2, Großer Saal
Joint working session: Usage Horizons
A tool for everyone - Archivportal-D has arrived! New usage opportunities and methods of participation (PDF, 83 KB)
Christina Wolf (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg)

Friday 26^th September 2014, 1pm – 5pm, Hall 1, Saal Werner
Further Training: Unit 8: Information on accessing material – exchange formats – normed data. The key to online archive portals.
Wolfgang Krauth, Daniel Fähle (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg), Dr. Nils Brübach (Sächsisches Staatsarchiv)

Friday 26^th September 2014, 3pm – 5pm, Hall 1, Saal Holthusen
Panel discussion: Real and virtual – the future of archive usage
Dr. Irmgard Christa Becker (VdA - Verband Deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V.), Christina Wolf, Dr. Bastian Gillner (Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen), Dr. Andreas Berger (Historical Archive of Cologne), Benjamin Kram (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg)

Wednesday 24^th September 2014 to Friday 26^th September 2014, Foyer of Hall 1
Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and Archivportal-D at the ARCHIVISTICA – Trade show for archiving technology
Parallel to the German Archive Conference, Magdeburg will also be the venue for the largest European trade show for the archiving profession, ARCHIVISTICA. The Archive service desk of the DDB and the Archivportal-D project team will be providing information on their respective portals at the stand of the Archivschule Marburg (Stand 15).

Further information:

84^th German Archive Conference 2014: ‘New Ways of Accessing Archives – User, Usage, Usability’
www.archivtag.de

with ARCHIVISTICA trade show
www.archivistica.de

24^th – 27^th September 2014, Messe Magdeburg

The German Archive Conference is hosted by the VdA – Verband Deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V.