VU historical archive included in Stadsarchief Amsterdam

These and many more historical facts about VU Amsterdam emerge from the VU's archive, which has recently been housed at the Amsterdam Stadsarchief.

Good news for anyone interested in the history of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU): the university's historical archive is more accessible than ever. Researchers and interested parties can now easily discover VU's rich history in the Stadsarchief Amsterdam study room or have documents digitised via the 'scanning on demand' service. "An organisation can only function well if it is aware of its own history," argues university historian Ab Flipse. "When you know where you came from, you can also develop a vision for the present and the future. This is especially true for an old and complex organisation like a university. It is wonderful for historians that this project has been completed, but it is also of interest to many others involved with VU and higher education in general."

More than a kilometre of archives
The collection comprises no less than 1.3 kilometres of historical company archives from the founding of the Vereeniging voor Hooger Onderwijs op Gereformeerden Grondslag and the foundation of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1880 until around 2002. Think of the archives of the central governing bodies: Colleges of Directors, Curators, Senate, University Council and the Executive Board, but also archives of the faculties and departments. More recent archives will be added step by step, subject to legal disclosure restrictions.

Sample project
The idea to transfer the VU Amsterdam's historical archives to the Stadsarchief Amsterdam arose gradually. There had been a desire for much longer to better organise, clean up and inventory the archive. This, combined with plans to rearrange the VU Amsterdam's depots, led to the decision for transfer. It was a true monster project that the Document Management and Archives Department of Administration, together with the company VADA, has been working on since 2018.

City Archive and Special Collections VU
The City Archive of the City of Amsterdam is the memory of Amsterdam where almost 750 years of documents, personal data, images and stories are stored. Recently, the VU Amsterdam's legally required archive material has also been included there. The non-legally preserved material that is also important to VU Amsterdam as heritage is included in the Special Collections of the VU University Library. These include material from study associations, from the introduction weeks for first-year students, information leaflets and recruitment material.

For an overview of all relevant VU archives, where they are stored and how they can be viewed, see on the 'Memory of the VU': VU Archives and Collections or www.vu.nl/archieven