DiEP – archives, monuments and archaeology Dordrecht – is part of the municipal department of culture. It administers the archives of the Dordrecht municipality and its local institutions, dating back almost 800 years, starting around the year 1200 and running through 1980. In addition to this, DiEP preserves some 1,000 archives of notaries, churches, enterprises, schools, associations, sporting clubs and various private institutes and persons that played a part or are still playing a role in local society. Moreover, there is a library including practically everything that was ever published concerning Dordrecht and the region, be it books, magazines or newspapers.

The historic-topographical atlas contains a huge quantity of visual material, including maps, engravings, etchings, drawings, photographs, posters and picture postcards. Youngest addition to DiEP’s holdings is the Vision and Sound department, which administers historic films and sound recordings as well as recent CDs and DVDs. After having been acquired, each item is restored (if necessary), conserved under the proper conditions and made accessible to the public in the reading room, on the Internet or through exhibitions.

Recently, the Dordrecht Municipal Archives have also become a place of safekeeping for the archives of a large number of other municipalities in the region. Thanks to this regional organization and its partial amalgamation with the Dutch society for the preservation of historic monuments and archaeological findings, DiEP developed into a cultural-historical centre for the entire province of South Holland (Island of Dordrecht, Alblasserwaard, Hoeksche Waard and the Zwijndrechtse Waard).