Archives départementales de la Corrèze

The administration of the Archives is one of the oldest in France, since its origins date back to the Revolution. It was created in 1790 when various laws nationalised the papers of the civil, religious and judicial administrations by centralising them in the district headquarters. However, it was the law of 5 brumaire an V (26 October 1796) that really created the departmental archives by ordering the collection of these old regime papers at the head of each department. Since 1986, the Archives have been one of the departments of the Corrèze General Council in application of the provisions of the law of 22 July 1983 on decentralisation, placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture for scientific and technical control. 

More than fourteen kilometres of archival documents are kept in the Corrèze Departmental Archives. In addition to the archive collections, a specialised library is available to researchers: its purpose is to allow the consultation, on site only, of references and tools (brochures, books and periodicals) which help to understand the local history and heritage of the department. 

The reading room staff welcomes readers and guides them in their research. The reader undertakes to respect the rules of the reading room. Readers can enter their own requests for documents, either by computer or on cards. After a short waiting period to pick up the document in the shop, they can consult the requested document at their work table. Some public archive documents are not freely communicable in accordance with Book II of the Heritage Code and Article L213-2 on the communicability of public archive documents. However, exemptions to the regulatory deadlines for communicability can be obtained using the exemption request form. Some private archives are also subject to communication restrictions or to the depositor's authorisation.