Archives

As the guardians of a priceless cultural and historic heritage, archives collect, conserve and communicate to the public all of the publicly archived materials (governmental organizations, municipalities, public institutions) and they are also responsible for private archives (corporations, unions, associations, private individuals, etc.,…) that are of major historical interest. Over the last twenty years, archives have seen their attendance increase significantly. This phenomenon, which is largely explainable by the fascination of the general public for genealogy, has resulted in saturated reading rooms, staff shortages and has made it apparent that archives need to rethink their practices and their relationship with the general public. For these reasons, many archives have chosen to digitize their collections.

The digitization of archives has many advantages. This solution makes it possible, on the one hand, to meet the challenge of preserving the collective historical memory while limiting risks of deterioration due to handling and moving of the original documents, and, on the other, to facilitate access to and viewing of the archives. Not only can documents be viewed instantly and simultaneously on multiple workstations, they can also be viewed remotely thanks to the Internet. And, finally, digitization makes it possible to reduce the operating costs of archival services.