The Portal of Spanish Archives (PARES) has registered during the last year (from June 6, 2018 to June 5, 2019) a total of 1,615,036 sessions and 849,800 users, of which 53.97% are from outside Spain. The users of Mexico stand out, 15.7%, followed by Argentina with 8.6%, 4.6% from Colombia and 4.2% from the United States.
PARES is the Internet dissemination platform of the Spanish Historical Documentary Heritage preserved in the network of centers managed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
The ranking of users by continent is led by Europe (49.96%), followed by the American continent (48.77%), Asia (0.74%), Africa (0.27%) and the rest are users who access from Oceania.
Users in Spain use an average of 10 minutes per session, followed by users in the United States with almost 9 minutes. The global average is 8:12 minutes per session. Regarding the number of pages visited per session, the average is 15.51 pages.
The most consulted
PARES contains 8,713,687 descriptions, of which 5,332,400 are published; 37,656,779 digital objects (published 34,185,765); and 94,556 authority records (59,608 published).
The five 'funds' most consulted in PARES are the National Delegation of Documentary Services of the Presidency of the Government (Documentary Center of the Historical Memory), the House of the Contracting (General Archive of the Indies), Indifferent General (General Archive of the Indies) , the Royal Audience and Chancery of Valladolid (Archive of the Royal Audience of Valladolid) and the Royal Board (Archivo General de Indias).
Regarding the 'series' most consulted through the portal are the documents related to the concession of titles of nobility of the Registry of executions (Archive of the Real Audiencia de Valladolid), the evidence files of knights of the Order of Santiago (National Historical Archive), the students' academic records (National Historical Archive), the passenger seat books to the Indies (Archivo General de Indias) and the litigation of hijosdalgo (Archive of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid).
The State Archives
According to figures from the Yearbook of Cultural Statistics 2018, the state archives under the Ministry of Culture and Sports have a useful area of 109,596 square meters, of which 52.3% is destined for deposits. They house 273.5km of conventional documents, to which must be added unconventional documentary collections such as some 300,000 medieval parchments; 91,518 cartographic documents; 1.7 million photographs; 42.9 million digitized images; audiovisual documents, etc.
In 2018, 55,447 documents were consulted in the room and 1.5 million work sessions were recorded on the Internet, with more than 25 million pages visited. Throughout 2018 the archives received about 1.2 million visits for cultural, artistic or architectural interest.
The network of archives and state centers is formed by the National Historical Archive (Madrid), the General Archive of the Administration (Alcalá de Henares, Madrid), the Archive of the Royal Chancery (Valladolid), the General Archive of the Indies (Seville) , the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Barcelona), the General Archive of Simancas (Valladolid), the Documentary Center of Historical Memory (Salamanca) and the Historical Archive of the Nobility (Toledo).
International Day of the Archives
The Ministry of Culture and Sports commemorates next Sunday June 9 the International Day of the Archives that is celebrated worldwide to commemorate the founding of the International Council of Archives (CIA), created in 1948 in the city of Paris as an advisory body of UNESCO. This year, under the slogan 'Designing the Archives in the 21st Century', the aim is to support the vital role of the archives professionals in the generation of opportunities that allow the development of a humanistic design that benefits the citizens and the community in general.
The commemoration of the International Day of the Archives coincides with the commemoration of the 525 anniversaries of the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas in Valladolid, and among others, the International Meeting 'The Treaty of Tordesillas and the Atlantic policy of the Castilian and Portuguese Crowns is being held ' In addition and until Sunday 9, the document of the Treaty is exhibited along with seven other documents of the time, some unpublished, from the General Archive of the Indies, the National Historical Archive and the Historical Archive of the Nobility.
The State Archives unite to commemorate the International Day of the Archives and, among other activities (full program), those scheduled for Friday 7:
- In Toledo, the Historical Archive of the Nobility joins the day of open doors 'The street of the Archives' that they celebrate jointly the Archive of the Nobility, the Municipal File of Toledo, the File of the Diputación de Toledo, the Provincial Historic Archive of Toledo and File of the Cathedral of Toledo.
- For its part, the Documentary Center of Historical Memory of Salamanca has scheduled at 19h. the screening of the documentary 'Gaza' and the presentation of the book 'Anarchists against the wall'.
- The General Archive of Simancas commemorates this event with guided visits to the fortress and the Archive of Simancas, and a classical music concert by several members of the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra (OSCYL).
In addition, on Sunday 9 and Monday 10 June will take place, among others, the following activities
- General Archive of Simancas (Sunday 9): guided daytime visits to the fortress and to the Archive; and a classical music concert by several members of the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra (OSCYL).
- General Archive of the Administration (Monday 10): guided visit to the Archive and free visit to the exhibition 'Documents for the Memory of the 20th Century'.
- Archive of the Royal Chancery (Monday 10): guided tours.
- Documentary Center of Historical Memory (from June 10 to 15): guided visits to the Archives of the city of Salamanca.