New inventory of CegeSoma's collections of private archives: acquisitions 2018-2023!

Every year, CegeSoma receives dozens of new archives from individuals or organizations related in some way to major conflicts of the 20th century: members of the Resistance, collaborators, prisoners of war, civilians struggling to survive the violence of war, and much more.

Often, these documents consist of just one or a few items—a diary, a bundle of letters, some photos—donated by relatives. Managing such small archives is a challenge: how to store, contextualize, and make accessible such individual items in a way that is both accurate and efficient?

Inspired by similar collections in other departments of the National Archives of Belgium, Gertjan Desmet chose to group the items from private individuals under one collection of ‘acquisitions’ with a single inventory – rather than as separate ‘blocks’, each with a full inventory. A somewhat arbitrary choice, certainly, but one motivated by pragmatism and efficiency.

This allows us to make the many individual documents we acquire each year accessible within a reasonable time frame, so that the public can come and consult them.

An initial inventory, describing the documents acquired from 2018 to 2023, has just been published and is available on AGATHA. It covers almost 4 linear meters and consists of 528 items from almost 150 separate archive creators – the result of 85 separate acquisitions.

Every Monday over the coming weeks, Gertjan Desmet will illustrate an aspect or type of source from these collections. For more information, please follow us on our LinkedIn or Facebook pages.