On June 1st in 2017, Professor Bruno Delmas, the former president of French Academy for Overseas Sciences who was entitled the French Knight, came to School of Information Management (SIM) to discuss the preparation to establish Chinese and French Archives Heritage Research Center and delivered a lecture titled French Archivists, French Countries and French Archives to the faculty and students from SIM of Wuhan University and School of History and Culture of Hubei University, as well as archival specialists from Hubei Archives Bureau, Huangshi Archives Bureau and the Bureau of Land and Resources, which was warmly welcomed by the faculty and students of SIM.

About 9 a.m., Professor Fang Qing, the dean of SIM, Professor Huang Ruhua and Professor Zhou Yaolin, the associate deans of SIM, and the faculty of Department of Archives and Government Information Studies met Professor Bruno Delmas at the 205 meeting room. Professor Fang Qing introduced to Professor Bruno Delmas about SIM’s long history, status quo and achievements in scientific research, as well as its status in the Chinese academic circle of information management. In addition, he suggested the future development path of the international communication and collaboration on archival studies. Mr. Delmas also introduced the important status as a think tank of French Academy for Overseas Sciences and Cole Nationale des Chertes in France to the leadership of SIM, and stated the latest development of French archival research and the efforts to actively seek for international collaboration. On this basis, the parties had a preliminary negotiation on the strategic cooperation in the following years and planned to conduct a seminar in France in the second half of 2017.

At 10 a.m. in 212 conference hall of SIM, Professor Delmas presented a lecture titled French Archivists, French Countries and French Archives to the faculty and students of SIM as well as archival specialists and students outside WHU, which was hosted by Zhou Yaolin, the associate dean of SIM.

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Delmas sorted out the countries that spoke French in history and the French archives they preserved, and introduced the origin and development of archival career in Europe through the historical review of the development of the archival career. In particular, in the period of French Revolution, the emergence of archival school promoted the development of archival science. Later on, combining the introduction of international organizations and associations of archival science, especially the archival science organization in French countries and areas, Professor Delmas told about the development frontier and trend of the world’s archival studies.

Finally, Professor Delmas emphasized that archival science was a career focusing on the future, and archival work were attached more and more importance to, which demanded those who engaged in archival science to continuously overcome the difficulties in traditional archival management and digital archival management in the new era and to bear the social responsibilities and missions. In the Q & A session, student representatives had an in-depth communication with Professor Delmas about questions including the ways to get over the language obstacle to promote China’s research achievements in archival science, and the focus of French archival studies nowadays.

At 4 p.m. on June 2nd, Professor Delmas had a further discussion and negotiation with SIM about the details of the implementation of Chinese and French Archives Heritage Research Center, including the research focus, regular communications among teaching and research staff, and joint organization of international meetings. Professor Zhou Yaolin, the associate dean of SIM, Professor Xiao Qiuhui, the director of Department of Archives and Government Information Studies, Wang Ping, the vice director and assistant professor, and Hu Jiming, the assistant professor attended this meeting. The two parties said that they would try their best to provide convenience for the communications between the faculty and students of China and those of France.

After the meeting, Professor Delmas interestingly visited the exhibition room of SIM’s history and said that he was overwhelmed by the long history of SIM at Wuhan University and every cultural relic preserved there, and that the masterpieces of the faculty written since the origin of the school left him a deep impression. He looked forward to coming to Wuhan and SIM again.