Instructions for Archivists of Maps – First Archivist’s Instruction for Specialized Archives

Abstract

The preservation and protection of cadastral documents is of a great importance for every country, due to the invaluable importance of the cadastre in general. The consciousness of it is as old as the cadastre itself, and that is why this matter was always considered as a matter of greatest value. Still in the course of cadastral survey of some Croatian countries, for the purpose of depositing and protecting the abundant cadastral documents resulted from the survey conducted, some special archives were founded – broadly known under the name Maps’ Archives. This work presents a review of the history of Maps’ Archives of the Austrian Littoral, founded in 1824 as the first specialized archives (registry offices), intended to be the place of preservation of cadastral documents for the area of the Croatian countries. For the purpose of better organizing the work and protecting the documents of the Maps’ Archives for the Austrian Littoral, in 1826 “Instructions for archivists of maps” (Instruktion für die Mappenarchivar) were published, the first archivist’s instructions for specialized archives. The instructions present a list of all the documents which are supposed to be preserved by archives and it provides information on detailed instructions and conditions of preserving the cadastral and archival documents, of using the documents, as well as all the other responsibilities of the archivist who takes care of them. This work is based on archival sources discovered in the course of the work on cadastral documents of the first systematic cadastral survey conducted in Istria. The above mentioned Instructions have been for the first time made public and translated into Croatian right on this occasion.