Digitization of archival materials

In order to preserve the original archives and to facilitate access to important documents, some archive files or parts of archive files are digitised. The scanning of photographic collections, necessarily accompanied by their cataloguing, is a long-term process. The digitisation of documentary archives must be preceded by the processing of the collections in question and, in the case of previously processed collections, by a thorough check or re-inventory. The images taken are then linked to the relevant units of description in the archival aids. Digitised photographs are continuously published on the Archival Vademecum web portal, while digitised documentary archival material is published in the Archival Vademecum in logical units (entire fonds or parts thereof).

It is assumed that all photographic collections stored at the Masaryk Institute and the Archives of the CAS will be digitised gradually. Documentary documents, which constitute the vast majority of archival materials, will be digitised only selectively. The basic criteria for such selection are several: physical degradation of archival materials, historical and informational value of documents, research interest, previous inventory of the collection. According to these criteria, priorities will be set in the order of the archival files to be digitised.

By the end of 2022, nearly 30,500 digitised photographs were accessible to the research community. Of the documentary archival records, over 200 inventory records were digitally accessible in the same period, many of them comprising dozens to hundreds of individual images.