RESCUING ARCHIVES ON FORMER DUTCH NEW GUINEA
Over the past few years the Centre for Pacific Studies (C.P.S.) has been repeatedly requested to preserve the personal archives of several retired administrative officers and government anthropologists who in the course of their career have worked for longer periods of time in Irian Jaya, Indonesia (former Dutch New Guinea). In principle the C.P.S. would like to meet these requests, particularly since it is considered a challenge to do so, but it is practically unable to store large archives. The C.P.S. is also unable to categorize archives in the professional manner which they deserve. For that reason, the C.P.S. has contacted the Catholic Documentation Centre of the University of Nijmegen, which has the facilities as well as the expertise to store and keep archival material, to arrange it as well as index this material.
The main objective of the Catholic Documentation Centre of the University of Nijmegen is to collect and preserve archives relating to the history of catholicism in the Netherlands. To accomplish that aim the Catholic Documentation Centre cooperates closely with the Service Centre for Cloister Archives in the Netherlands ('Stichting Dienstencentrum Kloosterarchieven in Nederland'; KAN). This Centre was established by a number of religious orders and congregations in order to advise and support religious institutes in the Netherlands in inventorising and managing archives. Many religious orders and congregations no longer have the personnel and the space to preserve archival material, while their mother-convents are frequently based abroad. This is particularly unfortunate since the archives of Dutch missionaries are, of course, usually in the Dutch language. In our opinion, too, it is of greatest importance to keep archival material which is in the Dutch language, and which is, first and foremost, important for the writing of Dutch colonial history, preserved in the Netherlands and to make it accessible for research, in the first place, by Dutch scholars. This does not only apply to the archives of Dutch missionaries, but also to those of former administrative officers as well as government anthropologists, particularly since their archives have also been targeted for collection by foreign centres for documentation of colonial archives. For that reason, now, the idea has emerged to initiate moves to encourage people with long-term professional experience in former Dutch New Guinea, either as administrative officers, government anthropologists or missionaries, to deposit their personal archives at the Catholic Documentation Centre of the University of Nijmegen. The campaign to create the possibility for depositing archive material in the Catholic Documentation Centre at Nijmegen is particularly aimed at safeguarding personal archives in case people themselves have insufficient space at their disposal, as well as to ensure that unique Dutch research material relevant for the historiography of Irian Jaya will notdisappear abroad or even become lost for future research.
The ownership of archives which have been deposited at the Catholic Documentation Centre will remain in the hands of the depositors and/or their descendants. This will be recorded in a Deed of Deposition. This Deed will also arrange for accessibility of the archives for scholarly research. In principle, archives will be open for research as much as possible. In some cases, for example when it concerns recent or personal materials, owners of archives may stipulate conditions for accessibility. One of the possible conditions could be to restrict access to archives and require written applications for research permission to the owner, his or her descendants, or in some cases, the Board of the Centre for Pacific Studies. The C.P.S. is offering its services to arrange access to conditional archives since it is of the opinion that it is extremely important that archives relating to former Dutch New Guinea will be preserved for scholarly research of the region in the future at a central location in the Netherlands.
Should anyone be interested in the initiative set out above, or should the reader know people who might be interested in the initiative but who have not been approached directly by the C.P.S., contact with the C.P.S. would be greatly appreciated.
Toon van Meijl