"Looking through patent drawings is just like time travel," is a quotation from the American patent lawyer Kevin Price in an article in Der Spiegel. Price, whose fascination for patent drawings led him to author a cultural history of patent drawings ("The Art of the Patent", 2011), states at the same time that there is a "decline of this art form". He describes how inventors used to create graphically rich patent designs, while those of today are rather "callous, dry".

The LWL Archive Office for Westphalia houses the archive of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) and the Westphalian Literature Archive. In addition, the Archives Office is responsible for active archival advice for public, non-governmental archives in Westphalia-Lippe.

"In order that the municipal, city, district and other municipal archives are perceived in the increasingly digital world and that interested parties can find on the Internet not only the state records in Archive Portal D, it is essential that the non-state archives participate in Archivportal D as broadly as possible".

A municipal archive is first mentioned in Munich in 1520 in the official area of the city chamber. At that time, all deeds and documents of legal relevance to the city were stored in the City Chamber rooms at the City Hall.

As the memory of the city of Mainz, the city archive secures and indexes all important documents on the history of Mainz. From medieval parchment documents to digital data carriers, the archive preserves the entire range of historical sources.