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==Archival policies==
==Archival policies==
While the materials were to be widely shared, the organization had to establish policies and procedures to deal with preservation, privacy, legalities and other concerns. Some of the issues they addressed were that the creator of the archive, not the repository (the IIAV), determines what is included in the records they donate. The second premise was that the IIAV determined the scope of the collections that they wanted to acquire, thus they are limited to women and the various women’s movements. Finally, the institute recognized that after its acquisition, the archivist had to be able to organize and preserve only those materials within the scope.{{sfn|de Haan|Mevis|2008|pp=24-25}}
While the materials were to be widely shared, the organization had to establish policies and procedures to deal with preservation, privacy, legalities and other concerns. Some of the issues they addressed were that the creator of the archive, not the repository (the IIAV), determines what is included in the records they donate. The second premise was that the IIAV determined the scope of the collections that they wanted to acquire, thus they are limited to women and the various women’s movements. Finally, the institute recognized that after its acquisition, the archivist had to be able to organize and preserve only those materials within the scope.{{sfn|de Haan|Mevis|2008|pp=24-25}} From its earliest beginnings, the archive was intended to be an international archive repository,{{sfn|de Haan|Mevis|2008|p=28}} though the fact that the women's movements were confined at that time to Western countries and their colonial territories, shaped the character of the collected materials.{{sfn|de Haan|Mevis|2008|p=29}}


==Archive collections==
==Archive collections==

Revision as of 23:42, 28 April 2017

Atria, view of the public library on the ground floor, Vijzelstraat 20, Amsterdam

Atria, institute on gender equality and women's history is a public library and research institute in Amsterdam dedicated to research and policy advice on gender equality and to the documentation and archival of women's history. Its previous names were International Information Centre and Archive for the Women's Movement (IIAV) (1988-2009) and Aletta, Institute for Women's History (2009-2013).[1]

History

Aletta Jacobs

Rosa Manus by "J.H. Sp." (Koos Speenhoff). Rosa Manus (1881-1942) was a coworker of Aletta Jacobs and a feminist and pacifist activist.

Foundation

In 1988, the International Archives for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IAV)), the Documentation Centre for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Informatie en Documentatie Centrum (IDC)), and the journal Lover merged to form the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IIAV),[2][3] with the goals of making information available for study and cooperation across the broad spectrum of women’s activities, covering both historic and contemporary aspects of their lives. In ongoing efforts to collect materials, they set a goal to acquire at least one periodical from each country throughout the world.[2]

At the end of 1993 the IIAV moved to the former Catholic church of Gerardus Majellakerk, built in 1924 in Byzantine Revival style, Obiplein in Amsterdam-Oost. [2] On 11 August 2009, the organization was renamed the Aletta Institute for Women's History, in honor of Aletta Jacobs.[4] Aletta Institute merged with the E-Quality Information Centre for Gender, Family and Diversity Issues on 28 January 2013 to form the Atria Institute on Gender Equality and Women’s History. Atria, the brightest star of the Southern Triangle, is always moving and has variable magnitude. The star's characteristics represent why it was chosen as a symbol of the organization, which focuses on "both the inequality and the variability of the relationship between men and women in society".[5]

Background

IAV had been formed in 1935 by prominent feminists from three different eras of the Netherand's women's movement: Rosa Manus, Johanna Naber and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot. The three women wanted their collected materials about the First wave of feminism, which included the personal papers of Aletta Jacobs, to be available for research and study.[3] To that end, they negotiated with the International Institute of Social History (IISG) to allow them two rooms in the IISG building located at Keizersgracht 264 to establish a library.[6] During World War II their archival materials were stolen by Nazi plundering and the library remained closed until 1947.[3] Posthumus-van der Goot was the only founder who survived the war. She became president of the IAV and headed the effort to reclaim their stolen property. In 1947, a small number of boxes of materials were returned and then in 1966, Ivo Krikava, a librarian in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia found and returned four books with the IAV stamp in them.[7] This collection, with later acquisitions, was accommodated in the 1950s within a building at Herengracht nr. 262-266. When the IAV obtained a substantial government grant during the International Women's Year 1975, the collection had grown beyond the capacity of the building.[citation needed]

IDC was founded in 1968,[2] as the repository for documents of the Netherlands Women Council,[4] and focused on collecting contemporary information on the Second feminist wave.[citation needed] In 1973, the Man Vrouw Maatschappij founded and began publishing the feminist cultural magazine Lover.[2] These two organizations were sharing space with the Foundation of Women in the Visual Arts (Dutch: Stichting Vrouwen in de Beeldende Kunst (SVBK)) at Keizersgracht 10, when IAV moved into the space with them. After cohabitating for seven years, the three organizations merged in 1988.[3]

Archival policies

While the materials were to be widely shared, the organization had to establish policies and procedures to deal with preservation, privacy, legalities and other concerns. Some of the issues they addressed were that the creator of the archive, not the repository (the IIAV), determines what is included in the records they donate. The second premise was that the IIAV determined the scope of the collections that they wanted to acquire, thus they are limited to women and the various women’s movements. Finally, the institute recognized that after its acquisition, the archivist had to be able to organize and preserve only those materials within the scope.[8] From its earliest beginnings, the archive was intended to be an international archive repository,[9] though the fact that the women's movements were confined at that time to Western countries and their colonial territories, shaped the character of the collected materials.[10]

Archive collections

In 1992 a specialised and automated Women's thesaurus for library documentation was published. In 1992, the Moscow correspondent Marc Jansen, for the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, accidentally discovered part of the original IAV archive in Russia, a Special Archive, untouched since 1945-1946. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, the papers were returned to Amsterdam in May 2003. However, the complete archive has not yet been restored.

References

Citations

  1. ^ This article is a part translation of the corresponding article on the Dutch wikipedia Atria, kennisinstituut voor emancipatie en vrouwengeschiedenis
  2. ^ a b c d e Best & de Vries 1994, p. 213.
  3. ^ a b c d Mevis 2012.
  4. ^ a b Yearbook of International Organizations Online 2009.
  5. ^ Salon 21 2013.
  6. ^ de Haan 2004, p. 152.
  7. ^ de Haan 2004, p. 159.
  8. ^ de Haan & Mevis 2008, pp. 24–25.
  9. ^ de Haan & Mevis 2008, p. 28.
  10. ^ de Haan & Mevis 2008, p. 29.

Bibliography

  • Best, Jan; de Vries, Nanny, eds. (1994). "Announcements". Thamyris. 1 (2). Amsterdam, The Netherands: Najade Press: 213–214. ISSN 1381-1312. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • de Haan, Francisca (2004). "Getting to the Source: A "Truly International" Archive for the Women's Movement(IAV, now IIAV): From its Foundation in Amsterdam in 1935 to the Return of its Looted Archives in 2003" (PDF). Journal of Women's History. 16 (4). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press: 148–172. ISSN 1042-7961. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 28 April 2017. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • de Haan, Francisca; Mevis, Annette (2008). "The IAV/IIAV's Archival Policy and Practice: Seventy Years of Collecting, Receiving, and Refusing Women's Archives (1935-2005)". In Wieringa, Saskia (ed.). Traveling Heritages: New Perspecitves on Collecting, Preserving, and Sharing Women's History. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 23–46. ISBN 978-90-5260-299-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Mevis, Annette (2012). "The Aletta Institute in Amsterdam and Its International Collections". Women and Social Movements International. Alexandria, Virginia: Alexander Street Press, LLC. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • "Aletta-Institute for Women's History". Union of International Associations. Brussels, Belgium: Yearbook of International Organizations Online. 2009. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  • "Aletta's new name: Atria, Institute on Gender Equality and Women's History". Neuverortung Geschlechtergeschichte. Vienna, Austria: University of Vienna. 21 February 2013. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2017.