2025 - a look back!

If this message is not displayed properly, click here please.

Dear friends and supporters of ICARUS!

With the year 2025 slowly coming to a close, we would like to take the time to reflect a bit about what this past year had in stock for the ICARUS community.

Our dear president nicely summed up the various events carried out by ICARUS and its partners (see below) and it is also our pleasure to welcome yet another new member to our network: the Museum and Municipal Archives of Graz, Austria. Along with Graz, we were happy to also introduce the State Archives of Venice as new member, who also most generously hosted our 35th ICARUS Convention! Another Italian member joined in 2025 – the University Library Center of the University of Naples Federico II. Earlier on we celebrated the accession of the National Archives of Latvia and the German based Church Registers Online with their ARCHION portal – a great addition to our Matricula database.

Speaking of which: Matricula is constantly growing, in 2025 concretely with additions from the Diocese of Limburg (NL), and the German Dioceses Würzburg, Regenburg, Rottenburg-Stuttgart and Fulda. Other active contributors were the Archdioceses of Paderborn (DE), Maribor (SI), Ljubljana (SI), Dioceses of Aachen (DE), Münster (DE), and Koper (SI), and the State Archives of Baden-Württemberg (DE, 19th century civil register). In 2025 we had about 48 million page views, with approximately 1,1million active users. Way to go!!

Our charters platform Monasterium and its contents, while being increased by the work of our Scanman Robert Reiter, are the centre of attention for our colleagues at the University of Graz within the frame of the ERC project DiDip – From Digital to Distant Diplomatics. Using advanced methods such as machine learning and computer vision, the project aims to enhance the user experience and optimise the research output. Latest news were shared during a workshop in Venice during the ICARUS Convention (see here).

Similarly, the Topotheque is also constantly growing in numbers (reaching the threshold of 2 million images in autumn this year) and just released a new feature – folders! Now you can combine related images (e.g. front and back, or several pages) in one folder, with a front image marked +1 (or more) to indicate the additional files allowing for a better and more focussed viewer experience.

The next year will not only bring further developments in our platforms, but also the publications of the proceedings of the 32nd and 33rd ICARUS Conventions (Novi Sad and Naples) – so stay tuned!

On the subject of Conventions: our next semi-annual meeting has already been scheduled, so mark your calendars for the 27-29 May 2026, because we will meet in Tallinn, Estonia, at the newly adapted premises of the National Archives of Estonia for the 36th ICARUS Convention!

With that we will release you into the Christmas holidays and wish you all a nice and peaceful end of the year, good health, and high spirits!

Your ICARUS team

Message from our President - Recap of 2025

Dear ICARUS members and friends,

On behalf of our organization and network, I would warmly thank everyone for participating in the activities of ICARUS throughout the ending year, preparing and taking part in the conventions and workshops, organizing the meetings, and supporting the community on local and international level in the very field of archival heritage.

There have been many outstanding events and significant conferences during the year of 2025, I’ll highlight five of them:

On 26–28 March, the 10th ICARUS Croatia Days in Opatija took place under the title of “Networks and routes of cultural heritage – archives as places of stories and history” bringing together hundreds of participants and around 70 presentations. A big thank you, dear Vlatka, and your colleagues from ICARUS Hrvatska and the other Croatian memory institutions for organizing this event!
On 12–14 May, ICARUS community met for the Convention #34 in Budapest, hosted by the National Archives of Hungary. The Convention titled as “Archives Reflecting 21st Century Challenges” focused on the dual role of archives as custodians of historical memory and active participants of contemporary issues, and also introduced two EU co-funded projects, “Archives and Traces of Migration” (AToM), and “Sustainable Archives and Greener Approaches” (SAGA). A huge thank you, Zoltán, István, Zsófia and your team for bringing together more than 40 presentations and organizing several workshops alongside the main programme - find some inspirational photos here.
On 1–2 September, the conference of DTI – Digitise. Transform. Inspire in Vienna formed a global initiative on digital transformation of archives bringing together partners as ICA, FamilySearch, Europeana, Time Machine, READ:COOP, AI4LAM and many more. A warm thank you, Thomas, Caroline, Vlatka, Žarko, and many others who helped with the organization and management of the whole event.
On 12–14 November, our community enjoyed the Convention #35 in Venice. Titled as “Bridging Centuries: Digital Pathways for Medieval Charters and Beyond”, the Convention was hosted by the State Archives of Venice and the event brought together more than 120 participants sharing 35 presentations which emphasized the scale of ICARUS’s network, growing digital collections, and the opportunities and challenges that AI and automation now pose for scholarship and archival practice. In addition, four special workshops on DiDip project, Matricula and Monasterium were organized for the Italian community. of A heartfelt thank you, dear Andrea, Paola, Federico, Monica and your very dedicated colleagues for preparing the first-time-ever conference of ICARUS in the historic city of Venice! Hereby you may find a look back to the Convention together with some great moments on the pics!
On 3–5 December, an inaugural signing ceremony of the AI4LAM Memorandum of Understanding took place at the British Library in London alongside the conference "Fantastic Futures 2025". ICARUS is not only a full partner in the AI4LAM consortium, but also a member of the Advisory Board. As this iniative only just kicked off, a lot more is to be expected in the future and ICARUS is at the heart of it.

Toward the new year, I’m happy to inform that the ICARUS Convention #36 will be held in Tallinn, Estonia, on 27–29 May, hosted by the National Archives of Estonia. We’re warmly welcoming the ICARUS community in Estonia after nine years – save the date right today, more information will follow in early February.

Thank you all for your commitment to the ICARUS community and keeping our joint actions influential, significant and successful!

Wishing you a lovely Christmas season together with your beloved ones,

Birgit Kibal
President of ICARUS

New Austrian Member: Museum and Municipal Archives Graz

We are delighted to welcome the Graz Museum (including Graz Museum Schlossberg and Urban Archaeology Graz) and the Municipal Archives Graz, Austria to our ICARUS community.

Together operating under Stadtmuseum Graz GmbH, these institutions bring decades of experience in preserving and presenting Graz’s cultural heritage. The Graz Museums care for extensive historical and archaeological collections, while the Municipal Archives Graz safeguard the city’s records from the 18th century to the present, with a strong focus on digital archiving.

Both institutions are actively engaged in digital innovation and knowledge sharing, making them a highly valuable addition to the ICARUS community. We look forward to future collaboration and warmly welcome them to the network!