Archiwum Główne Ruchu Światło-Życie

The Central Archive of the Light-Life Movement is the central unit of the Light-Life Movement. Organizationally, it is one of the two branches of Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki Institute. Like any historical archive, its aim is to gather, organise, protect, store and provide access to archival materials. The records stored in the fonds of the archive in question are primarily linked with Rev. Blachnicki, who established the Oasis Movement and initiated many other pastoral and social actions. A number of initiatives started by Blachnicki, along with the Light-Life Movement contributed to the production of materials which are now stored in the Central Archive of the Light-Life Movement. The article presents not only the stages of the creation of the above mentioned fonds but also its current legal status and contemporary tasks and functions. The paper shows the general outline of the fonds of the Archive which comprises numerous records divided into separate units. The Archive also contains a collection of leaflets-still unprocessed, posters and boards, as well as a collection of various serial, compact and brochure publications. The total fonds consists of approximately 120 linear meters of the records. The documentation in the form of mechanical sound recordings constitutes a significant part of the archival fonds (about five thousand hours), photographs (mostly positives of various formats - about 11 thousand photographs), slides (about 1000 frames) and films. The article also focuses on the archival equipment, housing conditions, the rules of providing access to the materials and the most important tools used for storing records. In addition, the authors mentioned issues related to the forms of popularization of the archival materials stored in the fonds of the Archive in question.