Kommunicera mera! : Tre svenska kommunala arkivs kommunikationsstrategiers styrkor och utmaningar

• Main Authors: Ekman, Annie, Ohlson, Zuzanne
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för ABM 2021
• Subjects: Communication Strategies; archives; Archival outreach; Relevance; Availability; Kommunikationsstrategier; arkiv; arkivpedagogik; relevans; tillgängliggörande; Other Humanities; Annan humaniora
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-447986

This master thesis examines the communication strategies of three municipal archives in Stockholm, Uppsala and Gothenburg. These communication strategies are specifically formulated towards the archival sector and the specific archives in question. A reoccurring theme in archival literature focuses on the need of archives to become more visible and up to date in society. Therefore, this master thesis aims to examine how municipal archives work with changing the narrative of “the dusty archive” and reaching out to the public utilising their communication strategies.In two cases, that of Stockholm stadsarkiv and Regionarkivet Gothenburg, professional communicators had been employed to work with the archive's internal and external communication including the formulation of strategic communication policies. Uppsala stadsarkiv on the other hand, had an archivist who oversaw and was in charge of the “communication process”. In interviews with the co-workers from all three archives one primary question was whether the strategies have been successfully implemented in the organisation or not. Following results were found: In some ways the communication strategies have managed to make the archive more attractive for visitors and users - especially in terms of public activities, such as publicly held lectures.Other challenges remain, for example communicating the archives in a way that is generally easy to grasp. The reason for this was described as the municipal archive's duality between being both an information management body and a cultural heritage institution. Archives are still being described as “a hidden gem of information” from an informant's point of view. This indicates that the archives' dual function as being difficult to communicate in a straightforward way. The results show us that all three municipal archives find communicating archival function to be a challenging task. This is a two years master's thesis in Archival science.