Bartosz Drzewiecki

Anna Ptaśnik is widely known for her long career at the Scientific Papers Bureau at the Head Office of State Archives. A lesser known fact about her is that she had previously worked at the State Archive in Kraków for several years. Her supervisor and teacher was Włodzimierz Budka. When she moved to Warsaw, Anna Ptaśnik often exchanged letters with her old mentor. The main theme of her letters is her longing for Kraków and her previous peaceful work at the Wawel archive. She complained about bureaucracy, incompetent co-workers, and lack of friends. Though she was considered a very reliable employee, her work did not bring her pleasure. The article explores what we now recognize as “professional burnout”.

For many years there has been a discussion in Poland on the evolution of the model of university education in the field of archival science. First of all, a need was recognized in the classical, historybased curriculum to emphasize the role of documentation management, and more recently – in connection with the development of the information society – there has been more and more discussion about the need to increase the share of information science in the didactics of archival science. The experience of other countries shows that education of archivists can be successfully based on centres associated with library science and information science. In order to meet the needs of the labour market, the Institute of History and Archival Studies at the Pedagogical University of Cracow since 2014 has been offering bachelor’s (and since 2017. master’s) studies in the field of archival science, but the main emphasis of education is put on records management and to a fairly large extent – as for the studies that are still linked to the centre for educating historians – on the practical application of information sciences. Thus, a course of study called Information brokering, records management and archival studies was created. This article is an attempt to assess the relevance of decisions taken several years ago. It includes a discussion of the curriculum of the studies. Among the offered courses, following thematic blocks are distinguished: historical (with additional emphasis on the history of state system and administration), archival, information science, and a block of records management related subjects. The conclusions that emerged after the completion of the first two cycles of studies are presented in the central part of the article. Based on those conclusions, the authors try to objectively demonstrate the advantages of the adopted solution, but also to point out its shortcomings, leading to frequent changes in the curriculum, and ultimately (in 2017) also to change of the name of the major.

The paper comments the Gdańsk/Danzig Hebammen-Ordnung issued in 1781 by the Naturforschende Gesellschaft and presents a scholarly edition of its appendixes. The Danzig Research Society was established in 1743, and in the late 70’s of the 18th century, at the height of popular and medical enlightenment (Volks- und medizinische Aufklärung), it engaged itself in making improvements in local healthcare system. One of the planned effects of numerous activities of the Society in the above mentioned context was both reform and development of local midwif ery, among others creation of a position of the Hebammen-Meiste and establishing a list-of-duties for Danzig sworn midwives and their instructor (respectively supervisor).