Annual Report 2002

Collections

Accessions

The Institute acquired over 1,200 linear metres of archive materials. Most (ca. 85%) came from the Netherlands, with one third consisting entirely of supplements to collections of the Lower House faction of the Dutch Labour Party, the FNV, the FNV industrial and food unions, the FNV composers' union and FNV-Mondiaal, for which the IISH is the trustee. Other large accessions came from a few consigning institutions from abroad, such as Amnesty International, the European Trade Union Confederation and the War Resisters' International. The Mr A. de Graaf Stichting, which had previously transferred a small section of its documentation on traffic in women and prostitution, presented the Institute with the remainder as well.
The records from the Stichting Natuur en Milieu were the most extensive among the new Dutch acquisitions. Combined with the records from Milieudefensie [Friends of the Earth Netherlands], which are already at the Institute, and Greenpeace, with which similar arrangements have been made, they are a representative sample of major branches in the Dutch environmental movement since the 1970s. The material from and collected by the Werkgroep Kairos, a Dutch anti-apartheid organization based on Christian principles, was another major acquisition. Both these collections are described in greater detail. The acquisition of the records from the Nederlandse Vrouwen Beweging [Dutch women's movement], which was established in 1946 and had a large communist membership, is similarly noteworthy. The many private donations included material from and about the Communistische Partij Nederland, the Pacifistisch-Socialistische Partij, the Internationale Socialisten, the Vrije Volk, the Rode Draad [red wire], the Beweging Weigering Defensiebelasting [movement against defence taxes], Democratie voor Spanje and the Chili Comité, to name but a few. We also made arrangements with the historian Ger Harmsen for his valuable collection to be transferred.
The IISH is the repository of a great many archive collections of and about migrants in the Netherlands, which were previously largely those of Turkish and Kurdish organizations. Once again, we received several accruals in this field, including the records of the important Nijmegen chapter of the Turkish Labour Association in the Netherlands (HTIB), of which the national archive was already at the IISH. We also obtained the extensive records of the Komitee Marokkaanse Arbeiders in Nederland [committee of Moroccan workers in the Netherlands] (KMAN), as well as the papers of its former chairman Abdou Menebhi. Descriptions of these and similar collections appear in the report Cultureel Erfgoed Migranten [cultural heritage of migrants] (PDF-file, 307 Kb.), which is the outcome of a project conducted by IISH staff members Erhan Tuskan, Zülfikar Özdogan and Marlou Schrover. A similar collection arrived from the lawyer P.B.Ph.M. Bogaers, who entrusted ca. 1,000 files on political refugees to the Institute. We also received a major collection of material about the Landelijk Inspraakorgaan Zuid-Europeanen [national input group for South Europeans] (LIZE).
The Turkish collection was enriched by the personal papers of Muharrem Karaman, who came to Belgium as a miner in 1964, was a foreman of Turkish workers in the Belgian trade union movement and edited Emek and la Tribune des Immigrés. We also received part of the collection of Mahmut Dikerdem, a diplomat and author who was sentenced for serving as the chairman of the association for peace (Barış Derneği) after the 1980 coup in Turkey. Turkish peace activists in Western Europe who were concerned about the fate of Dikerdem and his supporters provided additional material about the 1980s. Another important accession was the printed and audio-visual material from the Devrimici Halk Kurtuluş Cephesi (DHKC) / Dev-Sol (Revolutionary People's Liberation Front / Armed Revolutionary Units in Turkey), which has existed for three decades. Several older periodicals collections were purchased as well, including Mecmua-i Muallim (1888-1889), Hazine-i Funun (1893-1896), Yeni Mecmua (1917-1923), Düşünce (1922), le Courrier du Cinéma (1923-1924, published by Hikmet Nazım, Nazım Hikmet's father), la Turquie kémaliste (1934-1948) and Cephe (1945-1947).
Arrangements were made to document social-Islamic movements in Egypt, together with the International Institute for the Study of Modern Islam (ISIM, Leiden), the Freie Universität (Berlin), the Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDJ, Cairo) and al-Manar al-Jadid (Cairo), an institute of the movement itself. The IISH will serve as the repository for the material collected. On Egypt, we also received several videocassettes of material about Henri Curiel, a communist whose papers have been entrusted to the Institute. Our correspondents in Pakistan and Bangladesh continued to collect primarily newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. Moe Thee Zun, member of the secretariat of the National Council of the Union of Burma, transferred yet another section of his papers to the Institute. The British Burma Action Campaign also submitted a substantial accrual to the collection already present. On the Philippines, we received the first part of the collection recorded on microfilm from the Philippine European Solidarity Centre (PESC-KSP), a network of groups and individuals in 14 European countries that support Philippine NGOs and other Philippine organizations. José Maria Sisón, the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, who lives in exile in the Netherlands, presented the IISH with part of his personal papers on standing loan. The Gruppe Schweiz-Philippinen gave us a vast collection of documentation mediated by the Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv in Zürich.
The Institute acquired 120 letters and a modest photograph collection from Raden Darsono, a former leader of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) from the years 1945-1975. Adam Suparjan, a writer and trade union activist imprisoned from 1965 to 1978, gave us his personal papers. Martha Meijer presented us with documentation about political prisoners in Indonesia in the 1970s and 80s, including the material from the Dutch Amnesty International Coordinating Committee of the Groups on Indonesia. The Siauw Giap donated a large collection of material about Chinese Indonesians, Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Another noteworthy accession consisted of the photograph collection of De Brug-Djambatan comprising nearly 10,000 items. This publishing company was established shortly after World War II to help the newly independent colonies and remained in operation until 1987. The photographs, which were collected for the publications issued, primarily depict Asian historical subjects.
Our collection of modern Russian documentation was expanded considerably again this year, due in part to the collaborative effort with the Moskovskaia Nezavisimaia Obshchestvennaia Biblioteka (Moscow Independent Public Library). The Eastern Europe Institute at the University of Amsterdam gave us a vast quantity of biographical documentation about dissidents in the Soviet Union, as well as the personal papers of Bruno Becker, the doyen of Slavic studies in the Netherlands. The Institute received other material on dissidents, including the records of the Shcharanski Comité, from various sources. The last part of the vast collection of the Czech social democrat Karel Škrábek, who died this year, was transferred to Amsterdam.
The personal papers of Liberto Sarrau and his wife Joaquina Dorada were a valuable accrual to the Spanish anarchism collection. On the same subject, we received a modest accrual to the collection on José Ester, comprising material about the fate of the anarchist exiles following the Spanish Civil War. Additional items were received for the collection on Luce Fabbri as well. Christophe Bourseiller donated a large section of the extensive documentation he gathered for his study on French Maoism and his biography of Guy Debord. The Philipps-Universität in Marburg provided us with a significant accrual to the papers of Wolfgang Abendroth that included a wealth of material on the German resistance in World War II.
We added over 86,000 photographs, nearly 5,300 posters, over 1,700 videotapes and over 800 audiotapes to the image and sound collection. The majority of the photographs came from Greenpeace International and the Nationale Woningraad [national housing council] and most of the videotapes from FNV Bondgenoten. Many of the posters were acquired through exchanges. The special accessions once again included several rare posters from China and the Soviet Union, as well as a painting of the Dutch social democrat Jan van den Tempel by Jan Sluijters.
The Friends of the IISH once again helped the Institute make two special purchases. These items were a book of hand-written minutes from the general meetings of the Deventer chapter of the Nederlandse Bond van Sigarenmakers [Dutch union of cigar makers] (1928-1935) and a complete collection of the material from the Partiya Sosyalist a Kurdistan (PSK), which was established 25 years ago under the aegis of Kemal Burkay.
Finally, the Institute welcomed the very special return of several collections acquired prior to World War II but listed as missing in 1945. In 1991 they were discovered to have been at the Osobyi Arkhiv in Moscow all those years, where the Soviet secret service had gathered them together with many other West European collections for operational purposes. Following extensive negotiations, the Russian government agreed to return the material. The return of the personal papers of the German social democrat Joseph Bloch, which included the records of the Sozialistische Monatshefte, was especially important.
The above is merely a general overview of the countless new accessions. We are deeply grateful to the many individuals and organizations that entrusted their material to us for their willingness to donate these items for research.

Access

The Archives

During the year under review, the task force arranged a total of 492 metres of archives and documentation collections. This output reflects a slight increase with respect to the previous year (426 metres in 2001) but is far from sufficient to keep up with the new material acquired (1,235 metres). The ongoing project to publish the available IISH inventories on the Internet continued in 2002. The inventories were coded according to the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and subsequently published on the Website in SGML and/or HTML. With 540 lists digitally available by late 2001, over 750 were on the Website at the end of 2002.
During the year under review the bulk of the old inventories, which date back to the typewriter era, were digitized. Marked with instructions, these – mostly vast – inventories were input and coded in SGML by the Nethrom data entry firm in Romania. Following a round of corrections by the task force, they were placed on the Website. In late 2002, 30 old lists were published, including the ones of Eduard Bernstein, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Jules Guesde, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis and Franc van der Goes. The remainder, which comprises the inventories of Karl Kautsky and Marx and Engels will follow in early 2003.
This completes the project: new inventories are now added to the Internet immediately after completion.
A new project was launched to improve access to the documentation of the IISH. This collection includes material such as pamphlets, small bulletins, thin leaflets, clippings about individuals or organizations, flyers, circulars and the like. These materials do not belong to an archive or a separate – independent – collection but were donated or obtained individually. Thanks to the improved access system, they are now entered in the on-line catalogue by country, organization, person or subject.
During the year under review an inventory was compiled of the vast archive of the Vereniging Milieudefensie [environmental defence association], which was established in 1972 as the main Dutch action committee for environmental preservation. This project was funded by the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation.
The other major archives arranged include:
* the papers of Diego Abad de Santillán, author, editor and one of the leading figures of the Spanish and Argentine anarchist movement. Born in Spain (1897), he grew up in Argentina, studied in Madrid and lived and worked in both places. He was active in the anarcho-syndicalist Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA) and was the editor of its newspaper La Protesta. He represented the fora during the formation of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA). After 1931 he became an active member of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) and was the editor of Tierra y Libertad and Tiempos Nuevos. He served as secretary of the FAI in 1935 and organized the militias in Catalonia after 19 July 1936. Santillan was also the minister of Economic Affairs in Catalonia. He returned to Argentina and resumed his scholarship in 1939. In 1977 he went back to Spain again, where he died in Barcelona in 1983.
The IISH had acquired much of Santillan's archive in 1938. Additions arrived in 1975 and thereafter. His correspondence from the period 1922-1926 has been preserved and consists primarily of letters he received as an IWMA official from organizations and individuals in Spain (Manuel Buenacasa and others), Argentina (Emilio López Arango and others), Mexico (Nicolás T. Bernal, Enrique Flores Magón and others) and other countries in Europe and Latin America, reports and other documents sent to the IWMA.
The correspondence from the period 1940-1982 is with Nicolás Bernal, Fidel Miró, Juan Molina and Helmut Rüdiger, as well as with organizations (CNT, FORA, IWMA etc.). His papers also comprise a wealth of manuscripts, including a copy of Santillan's manuscript on Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican revolution and documents and printed material on the exile movement. The arranged papers cover 2.35 metres of shelf space.
* The papers of Senya Fléchine (1894-1981) and Mollie Steimer (1897-1980), both Russian anarchists who emigrated to the United States in 1910 and 1914, respectively. Fléchine returned to Russia in 1917 and joined the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations in the Ukraine. Steimer was arrested in New York for propaganda against U.S. intervention in Russia in 1918 and was deported to Russia in 1921. They met and became companions in Russia and were allowed to leave the country – after having been arrested several times – in 1923. They subsequently became active members of several relief groups for anarchists, such as the Relief Fund of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA). They emigrated to Mexico in 1941 (where their home became a meeting centre for political refugees) and corresponded with anarchists around the world. Their papers (shelf length: 1.5 metres) comprise extensive correspondence with a great number of anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in Europe, the United States and Latin America, including the Russian and Jewish emigrants Alexander Berkman, Marie Louise and Giovanna Berneri, Emma Goldman, Grigorij Maksimov, Vernon Richards, Millie and Rudolf Rocker, Augustin Souchy, Boris Yelensky and others. In addition, there are files and documents on anarchists imprisoned or exiled in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1923-1926), records from the Relief Fund of the IWMA (1927-1935) and documents about the Spanish refugee relief effort in France (1937-1939).
* The papers of Suparna Sastra Diredja, born on Java in the Dutch East Indies (presently Indonesia) in 1915 and known mainly as a trade union leader and author. He became involved first in the nationalist youth organization Indonesia Muda and subsequently in the Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia (Gerindo, Movement of the Indonesian People) and the emerging cooperative movement. During the Japanese occupation, he organized relief for the families of the romusas (the forced labour recruits of the Japanese). Diredja also helped draft the Indonesian independence proclamation in 1945 and was a member of the provisional Indonesian parliament in Yogyakarta. In 1947 he co-founded the plantation workers trade union Sarekat Buruh Perkebunan Republik Indonesia (Sarbupri) and served as its secretary general until 1965. In China at the time, he escaped the slaughter of communists and suspected communists after the coup d'état by General Suharto in 1965. He moved to the Netherlands in 1978, where he lived until his death in 1996. His papers primarily concern the years he spent in the Netherlands and comprise diaries, memoirs and manuscripts of novels and poems describing his experiences in Indonesia. They also include a wealth of correspondence with family members, comrades, academics, writers and Indonesian exiles, such as Willem F. Wertheim, Hersri Setiawan and Suleaman and Sutomo Martopradoto. The archive spans 7 metres and is open to the public.
* The papers of Alfred Mozer (1905-1979), born in Munich as the son of a Hungarian father and a German mother. As a textile worker, he belonged to the Sozialistische Arbeiter-Jugend (SAJ) and later entered journalism as the executive editor of the social-democratic Der Volksbote in Emden (in the German region of East Friesland). In 1933 he fled to the Netherlands and helped the Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP) [social-democratic labour party] organize relief for emigrants. After a period in hiding from 1940 to 1945, he became active in the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) [Dutch labour party], especially with the international work. He served as the international secretary to the PvdA (1951-1958) and then as the principal private secretary of the European commissioner of agriculture Sicco Mansholt (1958-1970). In addition to various personal documents, his papers (shelf length: 2.82 metres) comprise several manuscripts and articles that he wrote together with a wealth of correspondence with well-known social-democrats, such as Willy Brandt, J.W.A. Burger, Willem Drees Sr., Bruno Kreisky, Helmut Schmidt, Henk Vredeling and Herbert Wehner.
The archives task force generated 42 lists and inventories. In addition, global descriptions were made for over 500 Dutch archives and collections for which the website catalogue had previously lacked entries or contained only very summary ones.
Descriptions of 27 new archives and accruals appeared in the International Review of Social History to complement the new edition of the Guide to the International Archives and Collections at the IISH, Amsterdam, edited by Jaap Haag and Atie van der Horst and published in 1999.

The library

Most of the year under review was dedicated to upgrading the library system. The institute switched to a new version of Advance and adopted the new international standard MARC21. Both transitions involved extensive use of department resources, as far as the preparations, actual conversion and adaptation to the new system were concerned. Fortunately, the department staff soon mastered the new changes and maintained productivity. They catalogued 9,320 (2001: 10,537) books and 3,169 (2001: 2,505) periodicals and added issues to 1,817 journals.
In acquisitions, 1,984 (2001: 2,118) orders were placed during the year under review. The higher cost of books complicated maintaining the same level of acquisitions. In addition, 428 (2001: 388) items were received for the International Review of Social History. Invoices processed for books and periodicals totalled 771 (2001: 862).
Once again, we processed several major collections from the backlog. Catalogue entries were made for a wonderful collection of children's books about gypsies by J. Kommers (326 titles) from the L. Mazirel collection. The B. Althans collection contained a wealth of rightist-extremist material, including Holocaust revisionism. The journals, often printed illegally in small runs, were described by title (778 titles), and the leaflets (spanning approximately 2 metres) were combined in a comprehensive entry. Additions from older collections of the War Resisters' International (133 titles) and the International Student Conference (576 titles altogether) became accessible as well. Other new catalogue entries made during the year under review concerned collections recently received, such as C. Wiebes (232 titles) about information services, Aedes (10 metres) and Milieudefensie (185 titles). Catalogue entries for the NEHA included the fine R. Miellet collection of books about the retail business (150 titles). The items processed during the year under review spanned a total of 314 metres (2001: 252). The huge inflow complicated immediate processing. Accordingly, comprehensive collection entries were made wherever possible.
In addition, resources were dedicated toward several special projects. A large collection of new newspapers that emerged throughout Russia since the perestroika was entered in the catalogue. All Hebrew publications (approximately 400 titles) in the institute were corrected and re-entered. An ongoing project to elaborate old entries for periodicals continued. Some of the Bengali titles were made accessible as well. The library department staff also made collections accessible and ordered books and journals for the Press Museum and the NEHA.
The departure of Noor Jongert was a significant human resources event. Throughout her 37 years with the department, she did important work with the catalogue file. Arnout Kors accepted a job elsewhere. The exchange with the Dutch National Library in The Hague that began in 2001 was extended to 1 June 2002. Ger Ruigrok, a staff member at the Dutch National Library, processed a few backlog collections. Absenteeism, which had surged in 2001, declined in 2002.

The Image and Sound Collections

During the year under review 39,779 image and sound documents were processed. Many new acquisitions were entered, and access was improved to several previously catalogued collections. In keeping with the trend from recent years, more entries were global. Once again, more current lists were posted on the website. Most of the material added consisted of slides and negatives (23,553), photographs (11,192) and posters (2,019).
The institute received a large collection of image and sound material from the Socialistiese Arbeiderspartij [socialist labour party]. The list of negatives from this party was posted on the website. Most feature scenes from conferences, campaigns and demonstrations from the period 1970-1991. The sound material has been catalogued.
A large collection of photographs and slides was acquired from the Aedes Vereniging van Woningcorporaties [housing association].
The Stichting Sem Presser entrusted the private photograph collection that belonged to Presser and his wife to the Institute. Most are listed on the website, while a few are retrievable via the catalogue.
The Chinese poster collection was expanded, and cataloguing continued.
Several brooches were added to the lists on the website.
The department staff also catalogued over 1,500 mini audiocassettes with recordings of the Partij van de Arbeid parliamentary group meetings from the period 1991-1998.
Access was improved to several older collections. This was especially true for the largest posters, including placards.
Several projects were launched for the Geheugen van Nederland [memory of the Netherlands], a digitization project of the Dutch National Library. The glass slides of cinema commercials for Cloeck en Moedigh were catalogued for the ReclameArsenaal. Work began on the original sketches of Peter van Straaten for the Press Museum. This project will continue in 2003. The same holds true for Ben van Meerendonk's photographs.

Services

Use of the reading room rose substantially with respect to the previous year, although the number of visitors was 4 percent below the five-year average. In retrospect, the decrease for 2001 seems largely attributable to the 9/11 effect. Information provision rose a modest 4 percent. The medium used to request information shifted significantly in favour of the virtual information desk opened in 1998 (1998: 136; 1999: 131; 2000: 428; 2001: 1,243; 2002: 1,691). These requests seem to be replacing those submitted through the traditional postal service. On average, half the information requests are from the Netherlands, a quarter from elsewhere in Europe, one eighth from the United States and the remainder from other parts of the world.
The first full year of Shares, the interlibrary lending services for institutions affiliated with the RLG (Research Libraries Group), yielded 191 requests. Most were filled via Ariel, our system for electronic document provision. Altogether, 1,190 Ariel scans were made (2001: 254).
Once again, the vast IISH collections were featured extensively in exhibitions. In addition to the smaller exhibits compiled by reading room staff, such as the one about the Stem des Volks [Voice of the people], "Ook 11 september" [11 September too], material from our collections figured in twenty-five exhibitions. The most important ones were our own exhibition at De Burcht: Gansch het raderwerk … De spoorwegstaking van 1903 [Cogs in the wheel … the 1903 railway strike], En dan barst de strijd weer los … De verkiezingscampagnes van de Twintigste eeuw [A new round of battle … Election campaigns of the twentieth century] and Diamant, van ruwe steen tot sieraad [Diamonds, from rock to jewel].
The institute processed a total of 974 replication assignments, including 624 external ones. Over 2,200 items were reproduced from our image collections for publications or other media. In addition to the publications issued internally by Aksant, the Institute received a great many external commissions, such as for major educational publishers like Malmberg and Thieme Meulenhoff. Often our material is also used for entirely different purposes, for example for the new set design for the stand-up comedian David Alen Grier at Comedy Central, New York.
The majority of the participants in the 30 guided tours given by public services were students. The groups came from Amsterdam, Groningen and Utrecht. Interested parties from the discipline included the members of the Wetenschappelijke Bibliotheken [academic libraries] division of the Dutch association of librarians, the Vereniging van Pers- en Omroep Documentalisten [association of press and broadcasting network documentalists] and the participants in the Annual Meeting of the Research Libraries Group.

Preservation

The SDAP archive and the papers of Eugène Humbert, Pavel Borisovic Aksel'rod and Alexander Berkman were packed as directed for the Metamorfoze project. Other activities included assistance with the microfilm recordings of the Nederlandsche Illustratie (illustrated public magazines devoted to the Metamorfoze project) and the Circulars to member parties 1951-1958 from the Socialist International archive.
Nearly 6,000 items were digitized for the Geheugen van Nederland history project on the Dutch labour movement until 1918. Staff from the Collection Development task force provided constant assistance with collection and removal and during the digitization of the largest items, which included 300 banners.
In preventive conservation for Image & Sound, storage conditions were improved for flags, banners, the largest posters and various objects. In addition to the continuous operations in the library repositories, three special NEHA collections underwent preventive conservation: Van Deventer's library on textile history, the Bruyard collection and the Tulpenboek [book of tulips] from the seventeenth century. The Tulpenboek is now fully available online.
Processing the ongoing receipt of estates enabled the addition of 1,836 periodicals, placement of 6,377 books and completion of 11,168 new portfolios.
In digitizing the image collection, 3,801 recordings were made this year. The complete backlog, which resulted from technical and organizational problems between 1997 and 2000, has now been eliminated. The most fragile and time-consuming items were the large-size posters, as well as the objects, paintings and textiles.