Most archivists recognize that they need to plan for disasters, yet many repositories never conduct proper emergency and preservation planning. Even if they do develop a plan, it often is never updated or utilized.

Reference and access, two important areas of public services, are tied to all the activities that archivists perform.

Archivists prepare materials for use according to archival theory and practice; they treat materials like aggregates, arrange and describe them, and make finding aids. Archivists provide initial access through these surrogates, rather than sending researchers to the stacks to browse through the collections. Instead, archivists search within the descriptive tools themselves.

Archives exist to be used by researchers. Access is a set of activities that links primary source materials to the public. Archivists should be able to answer questions about specific collections, such as their sizes, date ranges, the existence of correspondence by individuals, research restrictions, and copyright status, among other issues.

A finding aid is a term used by archivists to describe the various kinds of written descriptions they produce about collections. An aid can be any descriptive tool: published or unpublished, manual or electronic, produced by the creator, the records management program, or the archival repository.

These guides were captured on paper for years, then were created in Word and Excel documents. Now, they’re frequently encoded using Encoded Archival Description (EAD), a standardized system that allows users to find primary sources more easily.

The purpose of archival description is to make accessible the information contained in the collection and maintain control over archival holdings.

Arrangement and description are the critical means by which archivists administer and control their holdings. Archivists view arrangement and description as an ongoing process, a series of linked activities that start with the decision to acquire materials.

The term archives has many meanings; it encompasses a complex array of institutional, political, social, and cultural aspects. Archivists think about archival materials in terms of what they acquire, arrange, describe, preserve, and make accessible, but many think in more abstract ways.

To establish context when performing arrangement, archivists start with an understanding of the overall body that produced the records. Archivists keep evidential and information values in mind to create a scheme that protects both. As part of archival collections management, they also think about audiences, as archives usually have more than one.

As technology has advanced, so has the effect it has had on traditional archival activities. The digital era has transformed collection development, appraisal, arrangement and description, preservation, and research services.

Technology has changed how archivists do their work. The impact has been dramatic, but it has occurred over decades, so the transformations have been gradual.