Gemeentearchief Roermond
Searchable online archive for the Roermond Municipal Archives, the memory of the city.
The Municipal Archives are the memory of Roermond. The archives and collections preserve the history of the municipality of Roermond and of the former municipalities of Maasniel, Herten and Swalmen. For centuries the city belonged to what is now Belgium, which makes Roermond's past a little different from that of most Dutch cities.
We designed and built the new website, and we also take care of maintenance and hosting.
The challenge
Searching an archive works differently from searching a regular website. The information is not in the description of the archive, but in the documents themselves. Because of old language and old handwriting, a keyword search often returns nothing, even when the document is there.
On top of that, visitors do not always know where to start: with an institution, a period or a collection.
Our approach
We built the search around the entry points that do work in an archive: institution, period and level, instead of only a search box for loose keywords.
The data comes in automatically from archieven.nl. A connection to their open data pulls in the records and keeps them up to date, so the archive does not have to be maintained twice. The design is deliberately calm and businesslike: to the point, without clutter, with the documents themselves in the lead.
The result
Visitors can now search the collection from one place, with entry points that match the way an archive is put together. New and updated records come in automatically.
Photos: Gemeentearchief Roermond
