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Eurhistar, the database of the Historical Archives of the European Union based at the European University Institute in Florence, migrated to a new platform in early November 2003 and is now available at a different web address, http://www.iue.it/ECArchives. It contains some 100,000 records, which meet international standards for archival description. The information can be accessed in a number of different ways, either by navigating static web pages through the fonds structure, or by using the search facility to generate dynamic pages.
The Archives first opened in 1986 but are due to relocate in Florence to gain additional storage space. Researchers are permitted access to the documents after the normal statutory period of 30 years following publication. The mandate to collect applies to all the institutions, but to date no documents have been transferred from the Court of Justice. For the other institutions, microfilmed copies are retained in Luxembourg and Brussels for consultation there in addition to the original documents held in the archives. Brief outlines of the categories of materials and their date ranges are available on the website.
The holdings are not limited however to documents transferred from the institutions. The archives also contain deposits of holdings from private individuals, European movements or international organisations. Examples of these are European Space Agency and OECD documents; and papers of the European Movement, the Union of European Federalists, the European Youth Federalists and Women of Europe. Several key figures and leading officials who have contributed to the process of European integration have also deposited their personal papers, for example Altiero Spinelli, Alexandre Marc, Fernand Dehousse, Etienne Hirsch and Emile Noël.
In addition to the categories outlined there are also a growing number of external archives and collections. Included here are various Jean Monnet extracts from collections and the Walter Lipgens Archives. A different dimension is provided by the European Oral History project. Through the programmes “Voices in Europe” and “Internal History of the European Commission, 1958-1973”, Jean Monnet history professors have conducted interviews with leading European politicians and Commission officials. Resulting from that, there are 104 record entries giving brief biographical details, an outline of the topics covered and key people named in the interview, together with information on any access restrictions. The small PDF icon on the right of the name banner leads to a transcript of the interview unless it has been embargoed. Interesting insights into the course of events can be gained from the recorded conversations with such people as Christian Tugendhat, Lord
Cockfield, Helmut Schmidt, Leo Tindemans and Claude Cheysson to name but a few. To access this area, simply select Oral History from the left-hand menu and then click on the relevant country flag to choose either the index of topics or the list of interviewees. Currently there are 167 topic entries and 220 cited person records.
To access details of the main archive holdings, there are two possible routes. To use the structural approach, select Fonds presentation and then choose which of the main collections you wish to explore. An outline structure of folders and sub-folders will be displayed, where you can select for further information right down to file level showing details of actual documents, complete with the reference numbers required to access them. The folder title appears as a navigation guide below the toolbar. At file level the option to “expand” the details given appears in the toolbar. Information about the contents of the files can then be displayed, some in considerable detail. However only five items per page are displayed in this format, so the summary format makes it easier to scan results quickly. Use the up or down arrows to navigate through the results list. At the top outline level, fonds with a PDF icon to the right of the name have an inventory, listing in full the contents of the collection and the file reference numbers.
A search option is also available from the main menu: select “Research by subject”. Search possibilities include the archival map - effectively a site map of the fonds, old record number, fonds name and date, and fonds name and file number as well as a simple and advanced keyword search. The simple search supports single word or phrase searching and truncation, and searches across all the collections. The advanced search option allows users to specify a fonds by selecting from a dropdown menu and use Boolean operators (“&” for AND and “,” for OR).
The News section contains information about recently added collections and progress in making them accessible. Finally the Blue Guide, available both in HTML and PDF, provides an excellent introduction to the Archives and how to consult them. For more information about available archives and archiving policy see also the Blue Guide to the Archives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Member States and the Institutions of the European Union on the Council's site at http://ue.eu.int/BlueGuide/en/index.asp?LANG=1 and the Commission's historical archives website with its database ARCHISplus at http://europa.eu.int/historical_archives/index_en.htm.
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