The motives for creating records vary. They can be personal or come from others. Examples include correspondence and diaries. People create records for social reasons, produced by an array of organizations.
Individuals act together in groups, and those collective activities produce documents, such as membership rosters and meeting minutes. Financial issues result in records documenting acquiring, spending, and managing money. Legal reasons include the protection of a right, proof of ownership and service, and court records.
Records can also be instrumental, serving specific functions. For example, maps and blueprints are records designed to fulfill specific tasks. Records may also be symbolic, where the items take on artifactual or cultural values. For instance, universities issue diplomas to graduates, but diplomas are not how people prove they graduated from an institution. Understanding these motives helps archivists place records in context, which helps them conduct the archival functions of appraisal, arrangement, and description.
No matter how they were created, archivists work with unique records. Many archival records are one-of-a-kind, especially older documents. Archival collections also consist of documents that may be one of several copies of the same item, and many more copies and versions of electronic records. The aggregate—the accumulation of records that form a person’s papers or the organization’s records—itself is unique.
Contemporary Records
Contemporary records have certain characteristics. They are abundant, both in creation and duplication, and collective. Archivists tend to think in terms of accumulated items because of the way archival materials accumulate. Focusing on individual items is impractical; it is more cost-effective and useful to think of groupings. The theory and practice of appraisal, arrangement, description, and often preservation is geared towards groupings of materials and not individual items.
Records are decentralized. No longer do archivists collect only the papers and records of the elites. History demands a more democratic approach to archival acquisition and preservation. However, changes in recordkeeping practices and technology have altered how records are created and stored. The days of secretaries typing letters and central storage files are over. People create their documents and keep them on their computers.
Records are interrelated. The documents of public and private organizations, government, corporate, and not-for-profits are connected and interrelated. Archivists need to collaborate with their colleagues as an organization’s records are likely to be spread among repositories. The lines between published and unpublished information were blurred even before the Internet.
The decentralized and interrelated nature of records creation and communication have emphasized the role they play in communication among people—their social nature. Archivists should pay heed to how records represent social interaction and community building.
The shifting usefulness of records gets to the heart of what archives are. Records are created by individuals and organizations while doing day-to-day business. They are used for the function for which they were created during a period. At some point, they are no longer needed for that initial function, and archivists must decide if the records have long term value for other reasons. Archivists keep them because of those other values because their use has shifted from the records creators.
Saving Records
Materials can exist for a long time but are not entombed. The goal of archivists is to preserve materials so they will be used. Records come alive as they become part of someone’s research. The purpose of repositories is to ensure that important materials are identified, brought into archival custody, and managed to be used.
Archivists live on the horns of a dilemma: their work is a constant balancing act between preservation and access. Archival work consists of selecting, preserving, and making accessible the materials within their authority. If materials are used, they are at risk, but what purpose is there to have materials if they are unused? Therefore, archival records reveal their essential nature for knowledge and scholarship.
The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.
Many archives exist within environments of chronic underfunding. Community archives, small historical societies, or lone arrangers may work with little more than donated materials, a handful of volunteers, and minimal budgets.
However, these institutions remain vital, safeguarding the histories of communities often absent from mainstream narratives. Scarcity shapes their reality, yet it can still allow meaningful work.
Humanity produces more digital content than at any other point in history. Every click, message, and post contributes to an expanding universe of data that represents the cultural memory of our time. At the center of this transformation stand archivists, the professionals uniquely trained to ensure that memories survive in the future. However, even as the scale of the challenge grows, their voices risk being sidelined in public conversations about digital preservation.
In recent years, the concept of “slow librarianship” has emerged as a thoughtful response to the accelerating pace and pressures placed upon library professionals. Drawing inspiration from the broader slow movement, it emphasizes care, reflection, ethics, and people-centered work over speed and efficiency.
The archival profession is characterized by dedication to public memory, cultural preservation, and service. However, beneath this noble mission lies a troubling reality: the increasing reliance on gig and contract labor.
Written documents have long occupied a privileged position in archives as the most authoritative memory source. However, this excludes vast repositories of knowledge that reside outside the written word, especially within Indigenous communities, where memory is often preserved and transmitted through oral traditions, performance, storytelling, ceremony, and embodied practices.
Archival description is often treated as a neutral or technical task: summarizing contents, assigning subject headings, and organizing metadata for retrieval. However, description is actually far from neutral. It shapes how users interpret records, which narratives are centered, and whose voices are made visible or erased.
As the archival profession reckons with the legacies of colonialism, more institutions and practitioners are turning toward Indigenous and decolonial approaches that reframe traditional archival practice. Central to this shift is recognizing cultural protocols and community-defined rules governing how knowledge is created, shared, accessed, and preserved. Cultural protocols are foundational to ethical, respectful, and reciprocal relationships between archives and Indigenous communities.
In recent decades, Indigenous communities and archivists have challenged the dominant frameworks that have long shaped archival practice. Traditionally, Western archival models have prioritized state authority, institutional control, and the presumption of neutrality. These models often fail to reflect Indigenous worldviews, community needs, or the rights of Indigenous peoples over their records and heritage.
As archival practice shifts to meet the challenges of the digital age, the ethical use of born-digital materials has become one of the most pressing concerns for archivists. These materials—emails, websites, text messages, digital photographs, spreadsheets, social media posts, and more—are created and stored digitally from their inception.
The fundamental principles of archival preservation focus on the agents of deterioration, preventive conservation, and essential preservation strategies applied in archival settings.
The monetary appraisal of archives and manuscripts is a critical yet underexplored intersection of library science and financial valuation. This article addresses the persistent knowledge gap between archival assessment and fiscal valuation and provides an overview of the monetary appraisal process in the United States. It focuses on concluding the fair market value (FMV) of noncash charitable contributions, a process governed by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). By documenting practices and terminology, the article serves as a resource for archivists navigating the complexities of donor relations and institutional stewardship. It advocates for increased fiscal literacy within the archival profession, suggesting that an integrated understanding of market dynamics and stewardship costs is essential for the care and financial substantiation of collections.
Proper archival storage is one of the most critical aspects of archival preservation. In addition to housing collections in a dedicated archival storage room, using suitable storage materials and enclosures helps protect archival collections from environmental damage, physical wear, and chemical deterioration.
One of the core challenges archivists face is determining the appropriate description level for materials in their collections. From broad collection-level overviews to granular item-level details, descriptive hierarchies play a crucial role in conveying the context and structure of archival materials.
Description is a cornerstone of archival practice, providing the means for users and archivists to understand, access, and interpret materials.
Mixed-media archives, which contain physical and digital records, present unique challenges for archival arrangement. These collections require archivists to develop strategies that address the different needs of physical and digital materials while maintaining the collection’s coherence and accessibility.
Digital records have introduced new challenges to traditional archival arrangement practices. While the principles of original order and provenance remain relevant, the nature of digital materials requires archivists to adapt these principles to new formats and technologies.
Archival arrangement organizes and structures archival materials to ensure efficient management, access, and preservation.
Redaction in archival work—obscuring or removing sensitive information from records—has become a central concern in contemporary archival ethics. As archives increasingly acquire born-digital records and digitize historical collections for online access, archivists must grapple with data privacy, access, transparency, and potential harm.
Archives have traditionally focused on preserving historical records, ensuring access, and maintaining the integrity of collections. However, in the digital age, the moral responsibilities of archivists have grown more complex.
Archives have long been viewed as bastions of memory, preservation, and historical accountability. However, archivists must confront ethical questions in an era of digital surveillance, data harvesting, and global information flows.
As archival institutions evolve from custodians of information to facilitators of memory and meaning-making, emotional engagement has become a vital, though often overlooked, dimension of archival design.
Archival reading rooms have long been the centerpiece of public access to collections. They are where researchers engage with historical documents, where discovery becomes tangible, and where the institutional identity of an archives is most visibly embodied.
Archival discovery tools, such as catalogs, finding aids, search interfaces, and digital repositories, are often the first point of contact between users and collections. These tools serve as maps and compasses, guiding users through vast and often complex holdings.
Design thinking has become a widely adopted approach in fields ranging from technology to education, prized for emphasizing empathy, experimentation, and iterative problem-solving. For archives, traditionally shaped around internal workflows and professional conventions, design thinking presents an opportunity to reimagine outreach and engagement strategies from users’ perspectives.
As the archival profession embraces a broader commitment to accessibility and equity, it must consider how design choices affect neurodivergent archives users.
Transcription is a powerful tool in the effort to make archives more accessible. It transforms handwritten, printed, and audiovisual materials into searchable, readable, and usable text, extending the reach of archival collections to users who might otherwise face barriers to access.
As archives increasingly move into the digital realm, ensuring online accessibility has become a fundamental responsibility. For users who are blind, have low vision, or experience cognitive or motor disabilities, screen readers serve as a vital gateway to digital content. These tools translate onscreen text and interface elements into synthesized speech or Braille, allowing users to navigate websites, databases, and catalogs without relying on visual cues. However, for screen readers to function effectively, digital environments must be designed with intentionality and care. In archival settings, this may be overlooked.
Archives embody the principles of access, stewardship, and service. However, for some users, physical and digital archives remain challenging to navigate, use, or even enter. Barriers to archival access are often unintentional, stemming from outdated facilities, inaccessible technologies, or limited awareness of diverse user needs.
Reference services play a pivotal role in the archival field, acting as a bridge between users and the wealth of information in archival collections.
Well-resourced institutions have developed archival best practices, including comprehensive finding aids, climate-controlled storage, and digital preservation systems. For small or resource-constrained archives, these standards can feel out of reach. The danger is that the profession’s ideals may discourage institutions from taking action, leaving records vulnerable. The solution lies in paring down practices and procedures without abandoning principles.