Premsela brings together archival institutions and professional bodies responsible for housing, making accessible and exhibiting Dutch design archives. The aim is to collectively ensure these archives' safety and coordinate with the national archival collection. To that end, we have formulated a selection and evaluation method; we issue information and advise designers about archiving; and we have launched the Central Register of Design Archives (CRDa), which maintains data on collections maintained by individuals and public institutions in the Netherlands.
Plan of Action for archives
The Plan of Action for design archives succeeds the master plan carried out by the Design Archives Working Group beginning in 2007 with financial support from the Mondriaan Foundation. Made up of representatives of Premsela, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Netherlands Institute for Art History as well as CRDa staff, the working group had begun conducting research on how to handle design archives in 2004 at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
The master plan led to long-overdue progress: 19 of the most significant and at-risk Dutch design archives were placed with archival institutions and museums and made accessible to the public. Suitable homes for them were located on the basis of a specially developed selection and evaluation system after consultation. Today, the archives are packed appropriately and stored safely in climatised repositories, having been restored and partly digitised where necessary, organised, provided with descriptions, and catalogued to enable public access where they are housed.
Of course, basic data on these archives and links between them are recorded in the CRDa. With every archive made accessible, a range of new data becomes available for research, publications and exhibitions.
Any questions?
To ask a question about archiving or provide details of a designer's archive, please contact the CRDa info desk by email or on +31 (0)20 3449 443.