Speaking at the opening of the Workshop, Mr. Guy Le Thiec - Rector of the School of Arts, Literature, Languages ​​and Humanities (UFR ALLSH) under the Aix Marseille University highly appreciated the effective cooperation between the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and the Aix Marseille University in research and training on archives. He hoped that, through this Workshop, the cooperative relationship between the two schools will grow stronger and bring many new achievements in the coming time. The international scientific conference “Archives in the 21st Century: Scientific Knowledge or Information?” is a meaningful scientific event to concretize the Cooperation Agreement between the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Aix-Marseille University, France, which was signed in 2017 and renewed in 2022. The workshop took place over 2 days with 12 reports presented in the plenary session and 11 reports presented in two sub-committees, attracting the participation of archivists and researchers in many fields from Vietnam, France, Germany... The workshop focused on discussing and evaluating the role of archival documents and archival activities in different areas of social life in the past and present; forecasting opportunities and challenges in archival activities to meet the needs of Digital Transformation taking place in the world; forecasting and evaluating the needs of contemporary society for archival documents and archival activities; sharing experiences of archives and researchers in meeting the new requirements of contemporary society as well as promoting the value of archival documents in the context of digital transformation taking place today.
The conference took place in an academic, open and high-quality atmosphere. This is an academic forum for scholars to share new research results on archival studies in the 21st century. The study of traditional values ​​and potential values ​​of archival documents in the face of social changes, especially in the era of Digital Transformation, is a topic of interest to many archives in countries around the world and Vietnam. Therefore, the study of the need to use archival documents in contemporary society is always topical and urgent in many countries around the world, including Vietnam. Also at the Workshop, Prof. Dr. Detlef Brisen (University of Giessen - Federal Republic of Germany) represented the editorial team to introduce the book "Archival Science and the digital transformation in Vietnam. Legal and practical issues for the 21st century" published by Nomos Publishing House - including articles by the staff and lecturers of the Department of Archival Science and Office Management, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) and a number of other scientists.
Within the framework of the Workshop program, the members of the delegation were introduced to the most modern technologies in digitization and restoration of archival documents by leading experts of the French National Archives Overseas (ANOM). These are valuable professional experiences for the lecturers of the Department of Archival Science and Office Management, contributing to improving the quality of scientific research and training to meet the new needs of the Archives industry in Vietnam.