Around 13,000 digitized items offer new insights into the city's history
Historical council minutes, administrative reports, and graphics from past centuries can now be conveniently viewed on a computer: The Darmstadt City Archives has expanded its digital offerings. Approximately 1,500 documents, comprising a total of about 13,000 digital images, are now available online. This allows interested individuals to access selected historical sources on Darmstadt's urban history around the clock.
The expansion was made possible through the collaboration between the city archives and the municipal IT department. Numerous holdings were already searchable via the Arcinsys archive information system. The new feature is the ability to view selected documents directly online.
Historical council minutes and graphics from Darmstadt
The newly available holdings include, among other things, prints by the Darmstadt court painter Ernst August Schnittspahn (1795–1882). These are complemented by historical council minutes, administrative reports, and documents from the mayor's office and various municipal expert commissions.
The documents address topics such as civil engineering or cattle trading and provide insights into the work of urban administration in earlier centuries.
The sources allow us to understand how political decisions were made, what tasks the city offices handled, and how Darmstadt developed over time.
Changes in population structure, social and economic conditions, as well as historical building projects are also documented in the records.
Approximately 35,000 archival items are already searchable
The online database Arcinsys currently contains searchable records from the Darmstadt City Archives, comprising approximately 35,000 items. New data is continuously added.
Digitization not only makes it easier for private individuals and history enthusiasts to access historical sources, but also opens up new possibilities for academic research.
In particular, research on urban development, social history, and art history can benefit from digital availability. Furthermore, local archival holdings can be more easily integrated into supra-regional research projects.
Historical documents are preserved for the long term
The digitization of the council minutes and administrative reports was carried out as part of the so-called federal security filming project in cooperation with the Hessian State Archives and the Wiesbaden State Archives.
This nationwide program has served to preserve particularly valuable archival material for the long term since the 1950s. Originally, the documents were recorded directly onto microfilm for this purpose.
Today, historical documents are first scanned using digital scanners. The images are then transferred back onto microfilm for permanent preservation.
The process thus combines two goals: the digital use of historical sources and their long-term preservation.
Backup copies are stored in the Barbara Tunnel
The Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK) coordinates the federal microfilming program. In addition to state archives, municipal institutions can also contribute their holdings to the program.
The original historical documents will remain in their respective archives. Backup copies, on the other hand, will be stored in the Barbara Tunnel, the central repository for particularly important archival material of the Federal Republic of Germany.
This will also ensure that important historical sources from Darmstadt are preserved for the long term.
Researching historical documents online
Anyone interested in Darmstadt's history can research the holdings of the city archive via the Arcinsys archive information system. Selected digitized documents can now be viewed directly on the screen there.
Online access: arcinsys.hessen.de
(DARMSTADT – RED/PSD/stip)
