Hoi,
The archive of Cologne was a state of the art archive in Germany. If anything it was the kind of institution that people would donate collections to because of its excellent reputation and practices. A similar story happened to an archive in Theresienstadt if I remember well. Cologne collapsed because of an accident with an underground that was dug, Theresienstadt saw its collection disappear in flames.

We are not an archive. But our best efforts help safeguard against the total loss of an archive. We can be complementary to what our partners do. We should not think so insular.
Thanks,
      GerardM

2009/9/13 John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com>
On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Remember the archive of Cologne? It collapsed. When we have as a policy to
> have the exact files on Commons as provided by a GLAM, we prove provenance
> because our best practice is to include the material in our archive as
> provided by a GLAM. When we decide for all kinds of reasons to transcode it
> to another format we can and should when it makes sense. It makes sense as
> long as we keep the original.

We are not an archive.

If an archive collapses, they should take care of the items in their
positions, gifting them to someone else who can take them.  If they
don't, they are a very poor archive.

--
John Vandenberg

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