On March 1, 2018, Mannheim's City Archive - Insitute for City History became the MARCHIVUM. The new name is an expression of the new profile of the city archive, which was founded in 1907 by Mannheim's first city archivist, Friedrich Walter, and early on not only dedicated itself to the classic task of archiving, but actively researched and communicated city history. In recent years, the city archive has regularly offered seminars, lectures and guided tours, published articles on the city's history, and made a name for itself with its own research projects. Therefore, it also received the name addition Institute for City History in 2004.
Building on this development, the MARCHIVUM is expanding the range of educational and research work on city history by adding a permament exhibition and a Nazi documentation centre. The MARCHIVUM thus stands on three pillars: the archive with its extensive collections and holdings, the service for research and education, and the exhibition areas on the city's history and the Nazi era, which are supplemented by temporary exhibitions on various topics. In the 1960s, the organizational structure of the city archive was given the two main departments of Intermediate Archive and Historical Archive, and with its exhibitions the MARCHIVUM has now another main department.
One of the challenges of additional tasks was the limitation of space. In 2014, the city council made the decision to convert the high bunker in Neckarstadt-West into the new headquarters of the city archive. Two new floors were added to the six-story bunker, providing sufficient space not only for the offices, stocks, reading and lecture halls, but also for the exhibitions.
The MARCHIVUM sees itself as an open house of experience, learning and research. Already the archive area is open to the public, with it also the reading rooms and the new Friedrich Walter theatre. In the reading rooms, anyone interested has the opportunity to research topics related to the history of the city or their own family history. Likewise, Mannheim's building records can be inspected, if legal regulations allow. The new Friedrich Walter theatre can also be used by third parties, e.g. for lectures, workshops and conferences. The MARCHIVUM aims to appeal to different groups of the population and age groups, and especially to encourage schoolchildren to actively engage with the history of their city.
As a service provider for the city administration, the MARCHIVUM collects and preserves municipal records. It also has extensive collections and holdings from associations, political or ecclesiastical institutions, companies and private households. Before the move to the new building, the archive material comprised a length of 13 kilometres. Now, at the new building an expansion is underway. When it comes to digitisation, the MARCHIVUM can build on the achievements of earlier years, when the city archive successfully ran its own digitisation centre. At the new location, the digitisation centre will of course continue to pursue the goal of digitally securing and making available the entire historical heritage that has been handed down in written, visual and audio form. Large parts have already been digitised and can be viewed online.
In the MARCHIVUM, the archive regulations of the city of Mannheim apply on the basis of the law on the care and use of archive material (Landesarchivgesetz).
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