Section+2(1?)+Vatican+Archives+and+the+Vatican+Archives+Project

=Section 1--Introduction to the Vatican Archives and the Vatican Archives Project (I think I am section 1 now right?)=

This section will provide an introduction to the Vatican Archives, its history and development, along with a description of its access systems prior to the implementation of the Vatican Archives Project. This section will also describe the purpose, methods, and results of the Vatican Archives Project.

The Vatican Archives is one of the most major national and religious archives in the world. The Archives contains around 50,000 linear feet of records concerning the office of the Pope as well as the Catholic Church’s central administration; these records span from as early as the 9th century to present day. Given the dominant role the Catholic Church has played in society throughout history, the Vatican Archives ultimately has come to serve as an important center for religious study as well as political, cultural, and economic research. Reminiscent of its official name (Archivo Segrato Vaticano), the Vatican Archives have been cloaked in secrecy for centuries with several collection holdings withheld from the public. Unfortunately, this secretive nature also cloaked the collections publically available. Despite its central role as a research center, the Vatican Archives lacked a comprehensive and understandable inventory (finding aid/catalogue) system that would allow a neophyte user of the Archive to develop an understanding of the breadth and nature of its collections. This hindrance to user access inspired Francis X. Blouin, Jr., Thomas Powers, and Leonard Combs to embark on the Univeristy of Michigan’s Vatican Archives Project. This project was the first major attempt at providing a comprehensive, electronic database system for the publically available Vatican Archives collections using basic archival descriptive methodology and standards.

The first phase of the Project (1989-1991) aimed at creating the basic structure for the archival database access system. The second phase of the Project (1991-1995) was aimed at enhancing and improving the descriptive structure of the archival collections by conducing extensive analytical work on existing Vatican archival finding aids, scope and content of certain record series, and bibliographies compiled about ASV collections.

The main accomplishments of the Vatican Archives Project was the successful upload of the database access system to the archives and manuscript section of the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) and the publication of the //Vatican Archives, An Inventory and Guide to Historical Documents of the Holy See//. The database available on RLIN and the Guide can assist users in navigating the archival holdings and identifying the potential record collections or series that may be applicable to the users information need.