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.

The purpose of this master’s thesis in archival science was to provide a picture of what archiving of mental health records looks like in Sweden, and what rights private individuals have to their own mental health records. It fills a void in archival science research, as there is very little written about this specific type of document from an archival science perspective, and with Swedish conditions as the main focus. Similar questions are touched upon in research on those who grew up in foster homes; and from in research on attitudes to reading ones own patient records, ethical issues of preservation and destruction of records, and the patient record's legal status.  As a theoretical background, three of Cook's four archival paradigms were used, based on Foscarini's interpretation of these in relation to appraisal. For this thesis they were analysed with the individual's perspective in mind. As the main method, two questionnaires were sent out: one to Swedish archival institutions and one to practising psychologists. In addition, the method consisted of analysing government policies on appraisal of mental health records, as well as a review of the information about patient records on the Swedish regional archives' websites. Qualitative questions about experiences and attitudes have been outside the scope of this work. The scope of the research was limited to Sweden, and by the number of responses to the questionnaires.  The study shows that mental health records are legally indistinguishable from other patient records, that mental health records are often part of other records, and that many mental health records are destroyed ten years after the last notation, excepting records concerning children. This is a two years master’s thesis in archival science.

This study was written with the aim to shed light on which strategies were employed by all 26 Swedish municipal archives in the Stockholm region to attract users to the archives at the time of writing. This was done by asking questions about archive-based teaching and learning via survey to municipal archivists, analyzing the webpages of the municipal archives for information about making the cultural heritage available in non-traditional active ways, and studying the ”archival regulations” or ”archival guidelines” which specify archival management and responsibilities on the municipal level. The results show that archives in most cases are understaffed and that archive-based teaching and learning has a low priority in the municipal archives, even though in most of the cases the archival regulations specify an obligation to actively promote usage of the material in cultural and scientific contexts. The study doesn’t find a link between obligations specified in the documents and municipal commitment to making the archival material available in abovementioned non-traditional ways. The study sums up the current archive-based teaching and learning strategies for the examined archives based on the above sources. The author of the study hopes that the results will provide fuel for the discussion regarding municipal archives and the role they should play in making the cultural heritage available to the public.