Patrimonio documental

Objectives: to analyse the state of the art in advertising documentation centres and museums in Spain, comparing them with those in other countries.

Methodology: the research is based on a previous study of the principal authors that have written about advertising documentation centres. Several models of advertising museums are proposed, based on those that already exist in other countries, most notably the Musée de la Publicité in France.

Results: the information reported serves as a call to all archivists to open their doors to the advertising industry. While the State does not have the capacity to create a national advertising documentation centre and/or museum, private institutions and companies have taken this responsibility upon themselves and are building their own collections of advertising documents. The paper examines collections held in virtual and public museums in Spain, France, England, North America and Latin America. It outlines how university and research collections, mainly in the English-speaking world, operate and describes the working methods associated with archives held in Spanish private collections, as well as companies that commercialise documentary archives for advertising agencies.