Archive of Historical Documents

Scholar and cosmopolite, Dimitrios Vikelas, decided to leave his prolific and precious collection of books and papers to the municipality of Heraklion, thus providing the vision and the signal for the start of this great cultural undertaking.
There are three operational divisions, as far as the books and archives of this collection, are concerned:

a. Non lending department: Contains the old books and the ones that are not commercially available, as well as all the great grants of Vikela, Seferi and Avgerti. The gradual editing of the ‘Cretan Bibliography’, which, already, numbers, almost, 20.000 bibliographical cards, is being implemented.
b. Press and periodicals department: Contains newspapers and magazines, dating from the last centuries until today. Press is constantly updated on a daily basis and new volumes of older material are being added.
c. Archive department: This department houses all the archives that existed in the library and have been acquired during the past years. Requirements for the maintenance, evaluation and purchase of the archive material are great. Researchers study at the reading room of the department, assisted by its employees.

The most important books, newspapers, magazines and the valuable archive of Dimogerontia have been digitised during the project: "Steps in culture and tradition" and are presented here in PDF format.