Archives in "Plain Words"

Archival work can be very confusing and hard to understand for someone who has not ever visited an archives. This blog post will hopefully help shed a light on what an archives is, what archivists do, and why they are important. To begin, it is important to understand what is an archives.

First of all, an archives is special type of library. It can be a department within a library, a branch of a company, or a stand-alone institution. Its main purpose is to collect, preserve, and store documents and artifacts for future use. These documents come from within the company it is housed, or from the surrounding communities they serve. However, it is not just any document that gets collected, but are documents that have a research value to them. Most documents and artifacts within an archive is contained within a collection that has been donated by a person, government/school department, or company. The person who oversees all of this is called an archivist.

Archivists work with the local community or company to gather collections of materials for the archives. These collections are made up of various documents, artifacts, and digital files that pertain to a specific person, department, or event. The collection is usually grouped together by the person or group donating the items. Within the entire archives, there can be hundreds or even thousands of these collections.

Once collected, the archival staff works on organizing and preserving the collection for future use and long-term storage. When it comes to organizing, archivists work to keep the documents in the same order, AKA “original order,” that they were received as much as possible. This order is called original order. The reason for preserving the documents this way is that it provides insight into the thought process and working habits of the person who created the documents. This allows more depth to the research process because the researcher can discover not only the information contained within the documents and artifacts, but also see the inner workings of the person or department that created them. This is one of the reasons archives are so important. They preserve a unique aspect to a person or company’s life that otherwise might not be preserved.

Preservation is also a major part of the daily duties of an archivist. It is not enough for an archives to collect and organize the collections given to them, but they must also take measures to preserve these collections. This preservation process can include using storage materials that allow documents to stay in the best shape possible. For example, acid is a chemical that has historically been used in the production of paper products. This acid can cause the paper to deteriorate overtime. In order to stop this from happening, archivists use special paper, folders, and boxes to separate and store the documents for future use. There are also techniques used for preserving photographs, cloth, and other artifacts.

Another aspect of preservation is that of the digital content obtained or produced by archivists. Many archives will work on digitizing the documents and photographs within their collections in order to protect and preserve these items. Digital objects also need to be preserved in a format that will allow them to be viewed as technology changes. If this was not done by archivists, then the digital objects would become obsolete and useless.

The final major task of an archivist is research. Most collections with an archives are not open to the public to just peruse at will. In order for a patron to use the collections, they must work with an employee at the archives to find what they are looking for. This is aided by the use of what archivists call a finding aid. A finding aid is a document that provides pertinent information about the collection. This information includes a biographical note, the name of the collection, the dates covered by the materials, the types of materials found in the collection, main subjects within the collection, and the overall organization pattern used within the collection. A good finding aid will also include a list of all the folder titles to allow easy access to the materials. By using this finding aid, as well as other databases and tools, an archivist and quickly and easily find potential information that would be of use to the patron that is requesting information.

All of this information begs the question of “why would you do all this work? Why are archives so important?” These are very interesting question that have very interesting answers. First of all, archives are important because the preserve the history of the region or company that they serve. To most people, preserving history does not seem that important. To researchers such as historians or genealogists, preserving history is extremely important to their work. But it is more than that. Many universities have an archives to preserve the history of the university.

These collections provide a unique insight and understanding into how the university developed overtime. This information could include the development of policies and procedures, the change in colleges and departments, the development of curriculum, and the artistic and scientific achievements of the university. This same reasoning applies to regional and corporate archives.

Another reason for preserving all of this information is that it has a value that currently might not be clear to see. Many collections just appear to be a jumbled mess of documents and artifacts at first. However, as time goes on, and more work is done on organizing the collections it can become more clear as to the importance of the information. This importance is also brought to light by the requests made by patrons. Overall, no matter how confusing or strange a collection appears, there is always a secondary purpose for saving and preserving collections. In hindsight, archives can become the backbone of the community as they strengthen their ties to the community and progress in their work of preserving the documents and artifacts of the region, department, or company they serve.