ENArC and Monasterium.net

ENArC is based on several years of experience of the participating institutions in the area of international archival cooperation and the execution of international projects. Already in 2004/2005 the core institutes behind ENArC (the St. Poelten Diocese Archives (DASP) and the State Archives of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bavaria and Slovenia) joined efforts in digitising most of all medieval charters and making them accessible online. The following years saw the  development of a network of almost 60 archives out of 11 countries, which together run the world’s largest charters portal www.monasterium.net (more than 260,000 charters online by March 2012).

ENArC constitutes a considerable further development of mentioned charters project and is to be seen as an independent undertaking, based on the knowledge and experience gained in the earlier project. As it is, ENArC is not only aimed at making charters digitally available, but cooperating across borders in all other aspects of archival activities. In addition, the number of participating institutions is considerably higher and the project’s geographical reach substantially wider: 13 partners out of 11 countries have joined in the present project.