The figures that made our year

500,000 new items preserved in the meemoo archive system

Last year, we welcomed almost half a million new items into the meemoo archive system, totalling 3.6 petabytes (PB), with the majority of these items entering our archive system via digital influx. Content has mainly come from the cultural sector in previous years, but in 2022 it’s notable that we also archived a large number of files from the media sector.

We reached the 20-petabyte milestone at the beginning of the year, and are now at 23.5 PB – which is equivalent to about 5 million DVDs or nearly 34 million CDs. Mind-blowing!

16,000 registered films milestone

In October, we celebrated the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage with a remarkable achievement: since 2015, we have registered over 16,000 films from 61 Flemish cultural heritage institutions’ collections. This has been a long-term effort, giving us a first glimpse into a particularly fragmented film landscape. To learn about the insights we have gained, read the report. 

Of these 16,000 films, we selected more than 7,000 damaged ones for digitisation. In 2022, we digitally preserved almost 1,300 damaged acetate films, which means we have now digitised 65% of the damaged films known to us. 

Over 16,000 downloads from artinflanders.be

In 2022, we spent a total of 35 days taking photographs of art and heritage for the artinflanders.be image database, visiting 11 different locations to capture 636 works of art on camera.

With more than 21,000 images from over 60 Flemish museum and heritage collections now on artinflanders.be, this was once again very well received last year. The download button was pressed some 16,000 times.

25,000 audiovisual clips on The Archive for Education

The 25,000th clip, selected by and for teachers, appeared on our educational platform just before the end of the year. This means we are bringing even more of our partners’ archival content in the cultural, media and government sectors into the classroom. 

A new milestone followed shortly after the end of the year: our educational platform celebrated its 7th anniversary! Click here to see seven highlights from these seven exciting years.

Over 800 requests via hetarchief.be

Did you know that as well as searching through over a million of our content partners’ audiovisual items on hetarchief.be, you can also make specific requests? In 2022, 47 different content partners received a total of 818 requests through this platform. We are therefore helping to bring this vast wealth of Flemish cultural, media and heritage sector content to the general public.

Just under 50 training sessions and events

To share our knowledge with sector colleagues and meet up with our content partners, we regularly organise training sessions and events. In 2022, we filled our diary with 49 meetings. If you want to join us this year, check out our event calendar.

Over 280 digital heritage enquiries answered

Individuals and organisations working in the cultural heritage and arts sector can turn to our digital helpdesk with all their questions about digital heritage processes. Last year, we were happy to use our expertise to answer 281 helpdesk requests, a slight decrease compared to the record number received in the previous year. Almost half of these enquiries came from museums, followed by archives, heritage societies and other service organisations. We received requests from all over Flanders and even the Netherlands, with Antwerp, and East and West Flanders, leading the way.

If you have a pressing question yourself, let us know!

Ten new content partners welcomed

These highlights above would not be possible without our content partners and the archival content they entrust to us. Last year, we were privileged to add ten new content partners to our network: seven museums, two heritage libraries and one heritage society. So now we have 172! To find out who we’re working with, see this overview.