The Ostrava City Archive (Archiv města Ostravy) was founded in 1923 when Alois Adamus, a teacher from the Ostrava grammar school, became the city’s archivist. The archive has been available to the public since 1925. In later decades, the archive went through many organisational changes, for example, during the Second World War and in 1960 during the change of territorial structure of Czechoslovakia. Since the 1960s, the archive has been publishing the almanac “Ostrava” and other publications and it has also organised exhibitions and other popular events. It took part in organising the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the foundation of Ostrava in 1967 and published “Průvodce po archivních fondech a sbírkách městského archivu” (The Guide through the Archive Fonds and Collection of the City Archive”. It has used its current name, “Archiv města Ostravy”, since 1969. After 1990, in the times of vindications, restitutions and privatizations, the archive was intensively looking for documents, issuing certificates etc. The archive is active both in scientific and in popularizing ways these days; it publishes many publications and organises lectures and exhibitions.
The Ostrava City Archive, a department of the Ostrava City Hall, is an accredited archive of a territorial self-governing unit – the municipality of Ostrava – according to Act No. 499/2004 Coll. on Archiving and Records Management and on the Amendment of Selected Acts and following regulations. The archive consists of the Archival Department and the Department of Services, a chronicler of Ostrava is also organised within the archive. The archive supervises fulfilling pre-archive care for materials, accepts them for permanent storage, makes them available for the public, searches for and provides information, is active in researching the history of the Ostrava region and publishes books on the topic and guarantees writing of the city’s chronicle and methodical supervision of the chroniclers of city districts.
The Ostrava City Archive now cares for 6358 metres of archive materials from 1362–2017. In the archive, there are documents of authorities of municipality and state administration, working in the city and district of Ostrava, or in municipalities that are now part of the city (city council, local municipalities, local committees, district councils), authorities of justice (district courts, district attorney), documents of schools and hospitals, associations, church administration (parish authorities of the municipalities), personal collection of personalities associated with the region etc. A part of the archive are also collections, e.g. a collection of maps and plans, pictures and postcards, posters and administrative prints, building files of demolished objects etc. At the end of 2017, there was 1505 archival fonds and collections, 880 of which have been processed (available or partly available for public).