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Origins

The Centro de Documentación y Archivo Histórico (Documentation Center and Historical Archive) of the Spanish state-owned enterprise Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) is a specialized information unit which carries out the custody, organization, description, preservation, and diffusion of the attached funds and which are part of the Spanish documental and bibliographic heritage.

This department’s origins go back to the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI), an entity which marked the evolution of the Spanish corporate state-owned sector for many years in the 20th century. Since INI’s establishment in 1941, a register service was created, to which were also assigned the general archive function, as well as a technical library and a newspaper and periodical library, which were supplemented with a general library in 1961.

In 1976, a Documentation Center was setup, managed by the Studies Department, which included within its structure the specialized library and the newspaper and periodical library and a section of the general library.

In 1995, the Registry and Historical Archive becomes part of the tasks assigned to the Documentation Center and, in 1996, begins the work on the refurbishment and software development of the historical collection kept at INI’s historical files.
In 2001, the management of the totality of SEPI’s historical collections was handed over to the Documentation Center, which begins to study the state and organization of each collection, beginning with their documentational treatment.

It is possible to consult the description of the archive according to the International Standard for Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings (ISDIAH) for further information.

Services

With the aim of guaranteeing the right of access of the citizenship to public information, archives and registries provide the following archive services:

  • Information and reference: information and guidance on the requests for consultation or during the research and on the use of the description tools. Reference on further collections kept at other archives or institutions.
  • Submission of the consultation results: submission of the results, upon request, of the consultations made on certain collections of the Historical Archive which are not accessible by internet.
  • On site consultation: consultation of the original documents kept, if there are no copies of the requested documents on other formats and their physical condition so allows. Documents are accessible to all, unless some of the limitations envisaged by current law apply to them.
  • Issue of attendance certificates for consultation.
  • Institutional loan: the documents can be temporarily loaned for exhibition purposes through the signing of an agreement.
  • Document-copying: reproductions for private, academic, or teaching purposes of the free access documentation whose conditions so makes possible. Reproduction for purposes which entail public communication can be made with SEPI’s corresponding authorization.

Terms of access

INI’s historical documents which meet the current law concerning access to archives is accessible, as long as its physical condition so allows.

Those persons who wish to consult the documents must be duly identified and have made an appointment with the Documentation Center and Historical Archive.

The requests for making a consult must be on writing (by letter, web form, email, etc.), clearly stating the goal and the data of the research which are relevant for offering advice on the consult of the documents.

Furthermore, they will sign a confidentiality agreement, committing themselves to observe the norms regarding the access and the diffusion of the data and the information of a personal nature which the Historical Archive might contain, in keeping with that stipulated by the current law.

No copy of any kind of the collections kept at this historical archive can be made without having a prior authorization.

Whenever possible, a copy of the study made for becoming part of the collections of the Documentation Center and the Historical Archive will be appreciated.

User service

The on-site consult of the documents of the Historical Archive, as well as of those of the Library and the Historical Periodical Collections requires an appointment, because the documents are kept at an outside site.

Once the request for consult has been received, the persons in charge of the Documentation Center and Historical Archive will get into contact with the person making the request for setting the date for the visit and, when needed, for providing orientation about the consult and/or the documents requested.

Opening hours:

  • From October to May: Mondays to Thursdays, from 09:00 to 14:00 hours and from 15:00 to 17:00 hours. Fridays, from 9:00 to 14:00 hours.
  • From June to September: Mondays to Fridays, 8:30 a 14:30h.
  • Closed: In August, weekends, national, regional, and local holiday days (in keeping with the official annual calendar), December 24th and 31st

Location and contact

Location

Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales. Centro de Documentación y Archivo Histórico
C/Velázquez, 134
28006 Madrid

How to get there:

  • Underground stations: Avenida de América (Líneas 4, 6, 7 y 9), salida Pedro de Valdivia; Gregorio Marañón (Línea 10); Núñez de Balboa (Línea 5)
  • Bus lines: 51, 19, 9, 16

Contact

You can get into contact with SEPI’s Documentation Center and Historical Archive through the consults and proposals section on this website, or through the Archive's email

Publications

Publications about the archive

(references are UNE-ISO 690)

  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena. “El archivo histórico del INI: un paso hacia el futuro”. Conferencia presentada en las Jornadas Los archivos de empresa y la investigación en historia económica. Madrid: AZSA. 1997, p. 24
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena; SAN ROMÁN LÓPEZ, Elena. “Los Fondos Históricos del Instituto Nacional de Industria”. Revista de Historia Industrial. 1998, núm. 14, p. 221–227. ISSN 1132-7200. Disponible en: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47745504_Los_fondos_historicos_del_Instituto_Nacional_de_Industria
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena. “Los Fondos Históricos del INI archivo de ordenador. Fuentes para el estudio de la empresa pública industrial”.Actas del VIII Congreso de la Asociación Española de Historia Económica [en línea]. Santiago de Compostela, 2005 [Consulta: 25 de septiembre de 2023]. Disponible en: https://www.usc.es/estaticos/congresos/histec05/b21_laruelo.pdf
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena. “El Archivo del Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI): un caso práctico de recuperación de la memoria industrial española”.  Presentación del VIII Congreso “Memoria y Tecnología” [en línea]. Boletín de la ANABAD: Madrid, 2008 [Consulta: 25 de septiembre de 2023]. Disponible en: https://www.anabad.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/2008.4.pdf
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena; SISNIEGA FERNÁNDEZ, Ana. “Historia de un archivo particular: El fondo documental de Juan Antonio Suanzes”. FerrolAnálisis, Revista de Pensamiento y Cultura. 2012, núm. 27, p. 258–267. ISSN 1576-4540
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena. “El Archivo del INI y las nuevas tecnologías”.  El acceso a los archivos de empresa. Bilbao: BBVA-Archivo Histórico, 2015, p. 127–141
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena; JUNQUERA CASADO, Isabel; SISNIEGA FERNÁNDEZ, Ana. “Construyendo paisajes: fuentes documentales de las empresas industriales en el Archivo Histórico del Instituto Nacional de Industria”. Ábaco. Revista de Cultura y Ciencias Sociales. 2015, núm. 86, p. 61–70. ISSN 0213-6252. Disponible en: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44709558
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena; JUNQUERA CASADO, Isabel; SISNIEGA FERNÁNDEZ, Ana. “El Archivo Histórico del INI: fuentes para el estudio del patrimonio industrial español”. El patrimonio industrial en el contexto histórico del franquismo, 1939–1975: territorios, arquitecturas, obras públicas, sindicatos y vida obrera. Gijón: CICEES, 2016, p. 59–65. ISBN 978-84-943556-0-8.
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena; JUNQUERA CASADO, Isabel. “La colección fotográfica del Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI): Una ventana a la industria española del siglo XX”. Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información.  2025, núm. 48, p. 109–115. Disponible en: https://doi.org/10.5209/dcin.95314
  • LARUELO RUEDA, Elena. “Aeronautics Companies in the Archive of the Instituto Nacional de Industria”.  Nacelles, Les Matériaux de l’aéronautique: approches historiques et patrimoniales, Sources, Acteurs, Témoignages [en línea]. Francia. 2020, núm. 8, [Consulta: octubre de 2023]. ISSN electrónico 2552-6987. Disponible en: http://interfas.univ-tlse2.fr/nacelles/899

Publications which have made use the documents in our archive.
You can get access to a non-exhaustive bibliography of the publications whose source is the historical archive’s documents consulting this bibliographic sample.