The National Archives annual public lecture will be held in the head office of the National Archives, Santo Spirito, Hospital Street, Rabat on Tuesday at 6.30pm. This year’s speaker is Gabriella Ivacs from Hungary.

Ms Ivacs is Chief Archivist and Records Manager of the Open Society Archives in Budapest, Hungary. Since 1996 she has been developing an archival and records management strategy for the Soros Foundations Network (an international, non-profit organization active in numerous countries throughout the world). Her recent focus is on information resources and knowledge sharing in the NGO sector, and to this end she has introduced open archiving techniques and applications among OSI-supported organisations.

In addition to her background in the NGO field, she initiated several digitisation projects relating to Cold War history, among them an on-line archive of the Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. She is currently involved in creating an on-line thematic collection on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

The lecture will deal with the following issues: how fragments of historical holdings can be brought together; how digitisation affects archival operations; the new archival skills and expertise required to achieve these goals.

Ms Ivacs serves as a board member of the National Endowment Trust for Culture in Hungary. She is also the author and director of two documentary films and has curated several exhibitions relating to the Roma minority and the history of the Cold War.