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Archive ○꠹｜Definition｜1st｜20251119205401-00-⌔
Archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located.12
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization’s lifetime, and are kept to show the history and function of that person or organization.34 Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as a product of regular legal, commercial, administrative, or social activities.5 They have been metaphorically defined as “the secretions of an organism”,6 and are distinguished from documents that have been consciously written or created to communicate a particular message to posterity.
Generally, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on the grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value.4 Archival records are normally unpublished and very often unique, unlike books or magazines, of which many identical copies may exist. This means that archives are quite distinct from libraries with regard to their functions and organization, although archival collections can often be found within library buildings.7 While archives are traditionally collections of documents, some scholars argue that buildings can be a type of archive.8 The choice of what to include in an archive can be a political act.8
A person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science. The physical place of storage can be referred to as an archive (more usual in the United Kingdom), an archives (more usual in the United States), or a repository.910
The use of the term “archive” with regards to computing (referring to a computer file storing the content of one or more others) should not be confused with the record-keeping meaning.
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
“Glossary of Library and Internet Terms”. University of South Dakota Library. Archived from the original on 10 March 2009. Retrieved 30 April 2007. ↩
“Definition of ARCHIVE”. Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2022. ↩
“The OPS Historical Archives - Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society”. www.opsweb.org. Archived from the original on 24 April 2024. Retrieved 24 April 2024. ↩
“SAA Dictionary: archives”. dictionary.archivists.org. Archived from the original on 29 July 2024. Retrieved 24 April 2024. ↩ ↩2
Manoff, Marlene (January 2004). “Theories of the Archive from Across the Disciplines”. Portal: Libraries and the Academy. 4 (1): 9–25. doi:10.1353/pla.2004.0015. hdl:1721.1/35687. ISSN 1530-7131. ↩
Galbraith, V. H. (1948). Studies in the Public Records. London. p. 3. ↩
“A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology”. Society of American Archivists. Archived from the original on 15 June 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2012. ↩
Bsheer, Rosie (2020). Archive wars: the politics of history in Saudi Arabia. Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures. Stanford (Calif.): Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-0518-3. ↩ ↩2
“Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology”. Society of American Archivists. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013. ↩
“archive”. Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) ↩
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