(Boston, Mass.) - The Center for Millennial Studies (CMS) at Boston University announces the launch of an international campaign to archive millennial documents and memorabilia pertaining to the year 2000.

This effort, conducted in consultation with the Library of Congress, continues the Centers mission begun in 1996, to record history as it happens by harvesting the documents and products of millennialism.  New associate archivists will receive a certificate of recognition from the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University.  The Center invites individuals and groups to participate by gathering information in any form on millennial events and beliefs.

 
"In the past, millennial movements have been intense and short-lived, leaving little documentation behind.  The CMS plans to create the most complete possible record of Year 2000 millennial activity, in order to provide future researchers with insight into millennial trends, and allow us to produce an accurate picture of events at this historic juncture." 

Richard Landes, co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies

Historically, round number dates, such as 1000, stimulate radical futurism, or the attempt to radically transform the future through visionary social action and discourse. "Round numbers are very poetic numbers," says David Kessler, executive administrator of the CMS.  "They have power over our imaginations."

To participate in the associate archivist program, millennial information of any kind can be sent to:

Relevant millennial topics include:

The year 2000-1	The year 1000	Survivalism/catastrophism
Millennialism	The end of the world	Earth changes/ pole shift
Apocalypticism	UFO Landings	Poetry
Y2K	Revolutions & Uprisings	Meditation
Prophecies	Mass gatherings	Prose
The New Age	Messiahs, Antichrists	Reflections


 
 
Millennialism:       belief in a coming, dramatic transformation of society, or of the world.
Apocalypticism:    belief in the immanence of that change.

The Center for Millennial Studies (CMS), a not-for-profit research center based at Boston University with branches around the globe, is the world's largest academic research center dedicated to millennial studies.  The archivist team is composed of academics, independent researchers, graduate students and others. CMS provides an important link among wide-ranging disciplines and the growing popular interest in millennial and apocalyptic activities.