. "The Archives are the laboratory where the written, visual and sound memory of the Cantal is transformed into History, where the past is combined with the present. Here are the different stages of this process, and the different jobs that it involves through the reception of school audiences:\r\n- Controlling public archives means providing technical assistance and advice to all of the department's administrations and local authorities to enable them to manage their archives properly, in compliance with the regulations. This control takes the form of visits and inspection or information meetings, as well as the (obligatory) approval given to the disposal of archives.\r\n- Collecting public archives (State and local authorities, notaries, courts), but also private archives, by donation, deposit or purchase (families, companies, unions, associations, authors); written archives (on parchment, paper or digital media), but also sound archives (on paper or digital media) and visual archives (architectural plans, photographs, drawings); old archives (Middle Ages and Ancien Régime) but also contemporary archives, memory of the future (beginning of the 3rd millennium).\r\n- To classify these documents in order to make them accessible by drawing up inventories, directories and indexes, which can be consulted in paper form and, soon, in digital format.\r\n- Preserving in good conditions of temperature, hygrometry and security means ensuring the preventive conservation of paper, film and digital files. When documents are too damaged, they are restored.\r\n- Communicating the archives, in the form of originals, microfilms and digital images, in a new reading room, opened to the public in April 2006. But communicating also means highlighting this heritage by welcoming school audiences (educational service), organising readings, study days, conferences, exhibitions and publications"@en . .