"Under the title ""Perspectives of professional training for archivists in the 21st century"" five regional and supraregional archival institutions from Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg and the Netherlands built up an e-learning course with content for archival training. Due to a more and more sophisticated job profile, the issue of an adequate training of the staff in archives has gained increasing importance. There was only a small offer of professional archival training that operated in a traditional learning environment and did not use modern e-learning methods. Therefore it seemed rational for the partners of a geographically consistent European region with similar cultural and historical roots (and as a result correspondent historical sources) to start a joint project to improve archival practice and to support the development of professional standards.In this pilot project the partners gained experiences in the use of e-learning methods in archival training. All the partners offered at least consulting services and some were responsible for regional trainings for archives inside their geographical jurisdiction and had close contact to colleagues of municipal and state archives as well as archives of other public and private institutions, for example nonprofit associations, clubs, companies or religious societies.As a first topic to realize in an e-learning environment the partners chose preservation and conservation, a central function of all institutions that are responsible for the protection of cultural heritage. Therefore all partners were able to contribute materials and experience that had to be prepared for e-learning activities by professional e-trainers. The target groups were the staff of the partners, the colleagues inside their geographical jurisdiction and last but not least archival personnel in other archives of the partner countries. Especially for small and medium sized archives with small manning level it often meant to close their archive if they wanted to participate on a traditional archival training activity. An e-learning provides the partners more flexibility and independence in training. To put the project into execution the partners organized regular meetings, they installed a virtual workspace for the periods between the meetings and they established contacts to e-learning experts from the Open University in Heerlen and the University of Leuven. The experts gave the essential didactical, creative and technical input for the realization and transformation of the training content ""preservation and conservation"" into an e-learning course."