Communications and outreach are an essential part of any archival program. Like politicians, archivists need to develop talking points to stay “on message.”

The ways to spread the word are varied, and archivists can be creative and have fun communicating their holdings’ value.

Many disciplines and fields in the humanities rely on the intensive use of primary sources and collecting, preserving, and facilitating access to those sources.

With the advent of technology, researchers have realigned the methods required in the digital environment for managing primary sources and research and pedagogy based on them.

Macro-appraisal, according to the Society of American Archivists’ (SAA) Glossary definition, is:

“a theory of appraisal that assesses the value of records based on the role of the record creators, placing priority on why the records were created (function), where they were created (structure), and how they were created, rather than content (informational value).”

Archives are committed to enriching human experience through their unique primary sources and heritage collections. A greater awareness of remarkable archival collections is required.

The digital preservation problems archivists and records managers face are threefold: technical, organizational, and cultural.

For some institutions, serving artists is a core component of their identity. For example, the Wallace Library at Juilliard serves musicians, the Harry Ransom Center serves writers, and the National Gallery of Art Library serves visual artists.

Archivists organize collections through appraisal, accessioning, processing, and preserving the materials. The goal is to provide access to the materials.

Collections arise out of an organization’s operations which are no longer in use and will not undergo further intentional modification other than preservation once they have been accessioned.

People may come to the archives as part of their creative process to expand upon or enhance a current project with archival research.

Policies for recordkeeping need to articulate several areas, including purpose, definitions, roles and responsibilities, and the functional areas of managing records that the organization needs to implement.

All organizations produce records, but the role that records play in organizational processes is not always recognized.