The 70th anniversary of the OEI is an occasion for staff in the secretariats to look back and recap how our work has changed over time.

What secretariats do today has little to do with the work of a secretary in the 1950s. As multitasking assistants with varied tasks and far greater responsibilities than before, it is hard to imagine university professors' anterooms without secretaries.

A brief overview of the development of secretarial work, not only at OEI, as well as interesting facts from everyday work can be read here.

The interviews with two former secretaries of the Institute for East European Studies provide vivid examples of the changes in the secretariats: the interview with Natalja Eisenblätter and the interview with Diana Nikolova.