Archives in transition: Bavaria’s memory is being digitized – Bayern

The Bavarian archives are veritable treasure troves, with a huge mountain of valuables slumbering in their depots, albeit only those that neither glitter nor sparkle. On the contrary: the files, documents, photos, maps, plans, posters, letters, telegrams and films stored there appear anything but glamorous at first glance. However, most of these objects are one-of-a-kind items that, once lost, cannot be replaced. In short: The many millions of archives in the state, municipal, church, economic, scientific and private archives form a gigantic memory of the Free State of Bavaria.

At the 12th Bavarian Archive Day, which was held in Passau on Friday and Saturday, it once again became clear what a challenge it is to preserve all these objects. For example, at least 25 million Bavarian archives are threatened by acid damage. If you want to secure at least the content of the papers in the long term, they urgently need to be digitized. What has been happening for years, but overall the transfer of the entire file stock into the digital world is a task of the century, which Bernhard Grau, the general director of the Bavarian State Archives, confirms at any time.

Archives are affected by the digital world in two ways. On the one hand, they have to change their business processes and services themselves. On the other hand, one of their tasks now is to take over the digital documents of all authorities and departments for which they are responsible. According to Grau, one challenge is that you have to deal with a large number of processes and different data formats. The constant change in storage technology alone requires highly complex solutions. No wonder, then, that the Archive Day in Passau was held under the motto “Total digital!” was standing.

Not only the nine state archives in Bavaria have to face this challenge, but also cities, communities, churches and companies, which are also faced with the question of how the data stored in the archives can be stored permanently and kept legible in the digital age. The buzzwords that characterized the archive day sounded like those at an IT trade fair: Total Commander, eAkten, interfaces, data mapping… However, it was clear from the speeches by the archivists that they had meanwhile acquired a great deal of digital-technical knowledge and implement clever ideas. Because it is “an underfunded mammoth task,” as Markus Schmalzl, senior archivist and digitization expert, said.

The many different data formats are a problem

A serious obstacle in this process results from the fact that the archives have to deal with many different data formats. The development of corresponding IT interfaces is on the right track, which according to Schmalzl gives reason for hope.

Since these innovations devour a lot of money, the question arose at the archive day as to how small communities should handle the digitization of the written material and the archiving of these digital documents financially and organizationally. There were no convincing answers this time. The topic of “artificial intelligence” also popped up in the discussions. It was said that it could also lead to rapid changes in archives, in whatever direction.

At the archive day, which takes place every two years, the Bavarian Janus is also awarded, a prize that honors services to archives. Rainer Haselbeck, District President of Lower Bavaria, presented the prize to Helmut Käs, Head of BMW Group Classic, who is also responsible for the company archives of Bayerische Motorenwerke. The latter also cultivates the BMW Group’s commemorative work, which not least focuses on the dark side of the company’s history, in particular the employment of forced laborers during the Nazi era.

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