International Archives Week 2026
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International Archives Week 2026
Celebrating Archives! ARCHIVES ON WIKIPEDIA / WIKIDATA
8 TO 12 JUNE 2026
From Monday 8 to Friday 12 June 2026, the International Council on Archives ICA, celebrates the sixth International Archives Week IAW2026 with the theme #ArchivesForJustice: Rights, Memory & Futures. ICA invites archival and records management professionals and organizations to promote archives institutions, collections and profession. By harnessing the power of cyber data and embracing emerging digital technologies, archives empower societies to make informed decisions, foster transparency, and preserve cultural heritage. ICA also invites archives and archivist to open discussion about it's future and vision. And celebrate the event with a spirit of cooperation.
Wikimedia CH and the Association of Swiss Archivists VSA-AAS want to give an impulse to support this initiative. In consulting the geographical map linked below, you will immediately see, that there is a lot to catch up regarding Wikimedia content on archives institutions in Switzerland. We want to make a call to improve the presence of Swiss Archives in the Wikimedia Projects.
Thank you for participating!
ARTISTIC INTELLIGENCE
Exhibition at Gallery Glaab
From 6th to 27th of June three artists show works reflecting artistic intelligence. This project is part of the jubilee 20 years of Wikimedia CH and takes place in the context of the international archive week.
The exhibition explores how archives, platforms and artistic practices can be reimagined in the digital age: Who has access to knowledge? How are AI-powered systems changing the way information is perceived, structured and communicated? And what responsibility do cultural institutions and digital communities bear with regard to openness, participation and sustainability?
• Opening: Saturday 6.6.2026 / 2 - 6 pm
• Presentations: Saturday 6.6.2026 / 3 – 4:30 pm
• Edit-a-thon (workshop): Sunday 7.6.2026 / 11 am – 4 pm
Further information
Panel 15th of JUNE 2026
Wikimedia CH is hosting a panel discussion on Archives for Justice online the 15th of June, the International Archives Day, from 6-8 pm Swiss time. Please find the recording here.
Moderation: Anna Sigrist, Opendata CH
Speaker:
- Emily Hildebrand, Artist in Zürich
- Claudia Glass, Archivist/Museum Educator in Basel
- Nicolas Sartori, Bibliothek und Archiv Aargau
- Diego Hättenschwiler, Documentalist and Wikipedian
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This campaign is a joint initiative of Wikimedia CH and the Association of Swiss Archivists.
Swiss Archives Landscape
In Switzerland, Archives institutions reflect our political system, known as federalism. In Switzerland, you will find three layers of public institutions:
- Swiss Federal Archives
- State or Cantonal Archives
- City Archives
The Swiss Federal Archives, based in Bern, were founded in 1798. They are the only one based on federal law. The building and its collections are a Swiss heritage site of national significance. In 2018 the archives held over 66,000 linear meters of printed documents and 20.7 terabytes of digital documents.
The Cantonal or State Archives are the public archives of the different states of the Confederation (the cantons). They are the oldest public repositories and contain the essential sources of the history of the cantonal territories from the origins of administrative writing to the present day.
Communal or City Archives are the archives produced by the mayor's office and the municipal services of the political communes in Switzerland (also called "local public archives", "municipal archives"), as well as the archives formerly produced locally by other institutions such as the parishes (or "parish archives") and the bourgeoisies. They preserve all documents relating to local government.
To this public institutions landscape, we have to add private archives.
Consult the Geographic Archives Map for linked Wikimedia Content
The following geographic map locates Archives in Switzerland based on Wikidatarecords. If you want to know which archives already have a Wikipedia article and which do not, as well as the respective quality of the article, you can find out by using the link to the map below. If you are a Wikidata expert, help us to improve and inject additional meta data into Wikidata to complete the information base for archives in Switzerland.
How you can contribute to the celebration!
- Association of Swiss Archivists VSA-AAS Link
- Europeana Collections online Link
- UNESCO Digital Library – Open Access material for research Link
- Swiss Federal Archives online access Link
- Archival collections of the ETH Library Link
- e-Helvetica of the Swiss National Library Link
- Archival database of the Swiss National Library Link
- Multimedia Archive of the Swiss Society for Folklore Studies – Empirical Cultural Studies Switzerland (EKWS) Link
- Access to the audiovisual archives of the ICRC Link
- Online catalogue of the Swiss National Sound Archives Link
Contact us!
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sandra.becker wikimedia.ch
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