Arkivens dag : En bildande erfarenhet eller marknadsföring?

Sammanfattning: Archives Day is celebrated in Sweden on the second Saturday of November every year since 1998. The aim of this study is to examine how and why Archives Day is celebrated at five archives in the Stockholm region. My empirical material consists mainly of semi-structured interviews with archivists at five archival institutions in the Stockholm region. I have chosen to only interview archivists and not any visitors due to the time con-straints and the scope of the thesis. I have also examined how the goals stated in a government report are carried out in the work with Archives Day. The theoretical framework of the investigation is gathered from educational theory as well as archival theo-ry. For the educational approach I have used John Dewey’s theory of what makes an experience educational to examine whether Archives Day is an educational experience or not. The aspects of archival theory I have chosen concerns the change of the role archives play in a postmodern society. My conclusion is thus twofold. First, I argue that a visit to Archives Day, the way it is celebrated at the ar-chival institutions I have examined, does not constitute an educating experience according to Dewey’s theory. It does, however, have the potential of being an educating experience. Second, I draw the conclusion that the goals behind Archives Day are in line with the general changes of the role of archives in society. Nevertheless, it is not certain that municipal archives have the resources to accomplish these goals. For Archives Day to be a truly successful public awareness campaign for archives, the central organization for Archives Day needs to be bigger and offer more help to the archival institutions. I also argue for further user based research in connection with outreach initiatives in the archival sector. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archival Science.