In archives, leadership is not merely a role but a proactive stance transcending the archival domain’s boundaries.
Digital preservation is crucial to safeguarding cultural and historical heritage for future generations.
Archivists play a crucial role in safeguarding the past and extracting valuable insights using cutting-edge technology.
Archivists should embrace technology, focusing on digitization benefits, digital platforms, interactive resources, and data-driven insights.
Determining the flow of an organization’s records ensures that archivists schedule materials for disposition.
In addition, archivists can liaise with departments within their organizations to help retain significant documentation and inclusion of those records within the archives. If there is not already one, creating a records retention schedule should be one of the archivists’ first tasks after an archival assessment.
Many organizations have little room to store archival collections, so rare and fragile materials often end up in less-than-ideal locations.
In addition, most materials deteriorate over time, especially audiovisual materials, so a vigilant eye is needed to protect the items chosen for archival collections.
Only a fraction of an organization’s records finds their way into the archives. Archives hold non-current records with permanent historical value.
They are no longer needed during day-to-day institutional activities, but they document organizational history. Just as each organization is unique, its archives are equally distinctive. Professional archival principles and standards have been developed over decades of archival practice. However, each organization will adhere to them in its own way.
To produce sound historical research, we need reliable primary sources. Records created at the same time as an event, or as close as possible to it, usually have a greater chance of being accurate than records created years later, especially by someone without firsthand knowledge of the event. When you are conducting research, you want to corroborate the contents of the document you are working with with information from other sources that have been proven to be legitimate
Every organization has a history; ideally, institutions should organize and preserve their records for the future. Written records are often the only source of information about an institution’s early intentions and activities, and these documents provide institutional knowledge about the organization’s establishment, by whom, and what programs and activities it created.
