In 2008, the International Council on Archives, coinciding with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of its creation by UNESCO, decided to establish the date of June 9 for the celebration of International Archives Day and extend this commemoration for a whole week. The objective IS to transmit to citizens the importance of these, which safeguard the rights of people, their identity and that of the different institutions they serve, facilitating the management of administrations and configuring themselves as the written memory of each culture.
Under the motto ‘We are Archives’, the International Council on Archives also wants to highlight what it means to be an archivist and the importance reflected in the documents they house.
Castilla y León wants to join this celebration with an extensive program of cultural events.
Among the planned activities are open days and guided tours of the historical archives, exhibitions of documents, conferences, concerts and a theatrical performance, which will be articulated around the Open Doors Days organized at the General Archive of Castilla y León , based in Valladolid, and in the Provincial Historical Archives of Ávila, León, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Valladolid and Zamora.
A celebration that is not limited, moreover, to this Thursday, but extends until June 22 to value the rich documentary heritage of Castilla y León. We select below some of the main scheduled activities:
1) The General Archive of Castilla y León organizes this Thursday an open day with two shifts of guided tours, at 10:30 a.m. and at 12:30 p.m., which is completed with a theatrical performance entitled ‘Los Comuneros, the chimera of a dream’ that will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the Renaissance courtyard of the Palacio del Licenciado Butrón, its headquarters.
2) The Provincial Historical Archive of Ávila also joins the initiative, which in addition to scheduling an open day for this Thursday and a guided tour at 12:00. (registration: archivos.avila@jcyl.es and 920 351 690), you can visit the exhibition ‘Images of the past that are not recognized in the present’.
3) ’60 years of archives’ is the exhibition that can be seen in the Provincial Historic Center of León, which, like the rest, has organized an open day for June 9 that includes a guided tour at 1:00 p.m. . (maximum 2 groups of 40 people each).
4) The Provincial Historical Archive of Salamanca joins this week of celebration with the organization of a guided visit to the exhibition “Culture and Propaganda in the Civil War and Postwar” as a result of the collaboration with José Luis Rodríguez Argüeso, a Salamancan collector and scholar of this period.
5) The Provincial Historical Archive of Segovia has also organized some open days. In addition to the guided tour on June 9, this Thursday there will be a round table on the history of Education on June 9 at 7:30 p.m. The specialists Carlos de Dueñas and José Luis Manrique will speak on the history of Education moderated by the professor of the Autonomous University of Madrid, José Luis Mora.
There will also be guided tours of the provincial archives of Soria, Zamora and Valladolid. In addition, in the latter capital, the headquarters of the Cortes will join the celebration with the projection in the building that houses the regional Parliament, starting at 10:00 p.m., a commemorative image of the International Archives Day, in collaboration with the Association of Archivists of Castilla y León (ACAL).
