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The Archive’s Door Ajar: The Registration of Company Archives in Antwerp and Flemish Brabant and a First Attempt to Construct a Scientific Acquisition Model for Company Archives in Flanders

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The Archive’s Door Ajar: The Registration of Company Archives in Antwerp and Flemish Brabant and a First Attempt to Construct a Scientific Acquisition Model for Company Archives in Flanders
Author(s)Buntinx, Jeroen; Sas, Bart; DeCaigny, Sofie; Lefebvre, Wim
AbstractIn recent years, interest in company history in Belgium has been increasing. The three projects for registration of company archives held by the companies themselves – for the provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant and for the Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest – are good examples of these efforts to make company history flourish. By analyzing the results of the projects for Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, this article examines whether a scientific acquisition model for Belgian company archives can be formulated, comparable to the eight-step model that has been constructed by the Nederlands Economisch-Historisch Archief (NEHA) in the Netherlands in 1994. The first part of the article compares the economic development of the provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant during the 20th century and the company archives held in public and private archives. Although for almost all industries a serious lack of source material exists, there still remains the hope that most of these gaps can be filled in the near future, bearing in mind the great amount of registered archives held by the companies themselves. In the second part, the shortcomings of the present acquisition procedures are revealed. Three main comments are formulated. In the first instance, registration was organized in geographical entities that were too small, causing a lack of overview. Second, the results were not acted on in the following years. Finally, alternative sources for company information were not researched. Four suggestions are proposed to improve the results of future acquisition projects: 1) focusing research on one or more industries or services, rather than on geographical entities; 2) analyzing the company archives already held by public records offices before the actual registration; 3) making a repertory of all possible additional sources on the topic; and 4) ensuring that after registration well-considered acquisitions follow as soon as possible.
IssueNo34
Pages643-675
ArticleArticle Not Available
SourceBelgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis
VolumeNo33
PubDate2003
ISBN_ISSN0035-0869
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