Community archives are archival initiatives, which are independent from the state activities. They are a new place, where you can look for unknown historical sources. You can find there e.g. family photos, private documents and diaries. Polish scientists consider sources of community archives to be very important for researches with new approaches, e.g. every day life, cultural life and social life.
On October, 24 they met in Warsaw (Museum of History of Polish Jews – Polin) at the 1st Meeting of Community Archives (www.archiwa.org).
Community archives exist also in different countries in the world. You can read about archives in Kanada, New Zeland, Italy, Germany, Great Britain and Poland here.
Photo: Warsaw University, Author: Nihil novi
Polish universities include research on community archives into study programmes and representatives of community archives are invited at universities, e.g. I was invited by a Polish professor of history to his seminar at the Warsaw University in May 2015. Beside that students chose to absolve their internships at community archives.