Why IIAV became Aletta
Aletta, Institute for Women's History manages a truly magnificent collection. Unfortunately, too few people are aware of it. The goal of achieving greater name recognition was difficult with our former name (IIAV). The old name did not communicate a vivid and forceful sense of who we are, and the IIAV was not well known to a broad audience.
Increased visibility
We aspire to create greater visibility in order to reach a younger and more diverse audience. Moreover, in a challenging economic climate, it is crucial that we develop new sources of income – especially in view of the fact that our funding from the Dutch government has decreased in recent years. It was difficult to achieve these objectives with our old name, which was not publicly well known. People will be able to find us more easily if they remember our name. That is why we engaged in a long and intense process, involving many advisors as well as our Board of Supervisors, to choose a new name. We decided on a name that was crisp, powerful and appealing – and one that alluded to an important history.The name ‘Aletta’
The first word in our new name, Aletta, refers to the Dutch feminist role model, Aletta Jacobs. She was the first female physician in the Netherlands and a famous advocate of women’s suffrage. Of course, there are many historical role models that we could have chosen, but we have a special bond with Aletta Jacobs. Her collected papers and documents formed the beginning of our collection. Younger people also associate the name ‘Aletta’ with women, feminism and women’s empowerment. That is an important asset for our organisation. We consciously decided not to use Aletta Jacobs’ surname or to add any other information. We felt that something short and powerful would communicate most effectively. Despite the name change, the collection is still legally called IAV (International Archives of the Women’s Movement) in our official statutes. If you enter the word Aletta into Google’s search engine in the Netherlands, our institute’s website is now the first item generated by the search.Institute for women’s history
The second part of our name – Institute for Women’s History – refers more directly to our archive and library, as well as to our scholarly ambitions. We made a conscious decision to choose 'institute for women’s history'and not, for instance, 'institute for gender studies'. For one thing, the notion of 'gender'is not yet entirely familiar in the Netherlands. For another, we tend to use 'gender'as an analytical concept. Aletta, Institute for Women’s History, is focused on issues related to gender, including transgender issues. We are also determined to meet the challenge of speaking to a broader audience – and that goes for our academic and scholarly activities as well.For all women
Aletta represents all women. We are not, however, an activist group, and we don’t have an activist agenda or programme. We are an institute that offers opportunities for everyone who wishes to share information and to advance study and research. We are committed to working together with (women’s) organisations, to advancing scholarly research on topics related to women and gender, and to making our archives and collections available for academic research. It’s no accident that four Dutch university professors have formal institutional relationships with Aletta. We aim to work with and be accessible to all ‘target groups’ and constituencies.International
We have taken the word ‘international’ out of our name. And we no longer mention the words ‘archive’ and ‘library’. But that certainly does not mean that we are no longer internationally active. In fact, a quick glance at our website makes it clear that we are working on large international projects. If there are people who are unsure about what Aletta stands for, both the second part of our name, Institute for Women’s History, as well as the tagline ‘Sharing the past, creating the future’ should make it sufficiently clear.What's in a name?
People often have emotional reactions when organisations change their names. It is important to maintain perspective in this regard. After all, what does a name mean? A name is a kind of shorthand that captures what we stand for: preserving and sharing history, inspiring people, increasing our knowledge about the position of women in society and about gender, and encouraging and advancing research in this field. We also aim to make a contribution to women’s empowerment and to improving women’s position in society. We aspire to do this both nationally and internationally, through our library, our archive, and together with our partners. We hope that we’ll be able to achieve these goals more easily and fully with our new name ‘Aletta, Institute for Women’s History’. We aim to reach everyone: managers and government decision makers, scholars and researchers, information specialists and the general public – in short, everyone who already knows us, as well as those who do not know us yet!Your views
Aletta would like to know what you think of our new name and ‘look’.aletta@aletta.nu