How are Archival Materials Maintained?
It is important to know and understand that archives require care and long-term preservation. They are managed according to three fundamental principles: provenance, original order, and collective control. We will take a look at each of these concepts more closely.
- Provenance: refers to how the collection of records is attributed to a creator and are maintained together and kept separate from the records of any other creators
- Original order: refers to how the collection is maintained and preserved in the order that it was established by the creator
- Collective control: refers to how the collections are arranged and maintained at the aggregate level
Key concept to remember: Archival collections are appraised, organized, and maintained as a whole, not by the individual items within the collection.
As the oldest and largest professional association for archives and archivists in North America, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) provides expert guidance for archival records and management According to the SAA (2024) [1], there are 12 commonly used but overlapping meanings for the word archive. This sometimes causes some confusion and even disagreements among archivists, other professionals, and the public. However, archivists generally recognize and agree on 3 main definitions for the word archive:
- the records
- the location where records are stored
- the organization that is responsible for both the records and the facility they are stored in
Archivists will sometimes combine these terms for a more clearer meaning. For example, the noun “archives” may be paired with the word “facility” to create the phrase “archives facility.” Another example is the adjective word “archival” may be paired with the word “profession” to create the phrase “archival profession.”
Below are some videos that introduce archives and compare the differences between them and other institutions.
- https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/archives.html ↵
