This article is an orphan as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions are available. (March 2010) Contents 1 Basic Definition 2 History of Archival Research 3 Pre-Internet Data Storage 4 Internet Age Archiving 5 American Archives Month 6 External links 7 Citations and References // Basic Definition
An archive is a way of sorting and organizing older documents whether it be digitally (photographs online E-mails etc.) or manually (putting it in folders photo albums etc.). Archiving is one part of the curating process which is typically carried out by a curator. The art of searching for archives consists of four main step: 1. Thinking about questions to find the archive in mind. Ask oneself: * Do I need specific information or just am I just curious about a broad topic * What is my topic of interest * Should I be using an archive or a library 2. Get the basic facts about the topic of interest. 3. Use websites associated with the particular archive building to search for the archive. 4. De

cide if one should visit the archive building for further assistance. History of Archival Research
Many archives have been around for multiple hundreds of years. For instance Vatican Secret Archives was started in the 17th century AD and contains state papers papal account books and papal correspondence dating back to the 8th century. Most archives that are still in existence do not claim collections that date back quite as far as the Vatican Archive.
However many national archives were established over one hundred years ago and contain collections going back three or four hundred years ago. The United States National Archives and Records Administration was established originally in 1934.1 The NARA contains records and collections dating back to the founding of the United States in the 18th century. Among the collections of the NARA are the Declaration of Independence the Constitution of the United States and an original copy of the Magna Carta. Similarly the Archives nationales in France was founded in 1790 during the French Revolution and has holdings that date back to A

D 625.
Universities are another historic venue for archival holdings. Most universities have archival holdings that chronicle the business of the university. Some universities also have cultural archives that focus on one aspect or another of the culture of the state or country in which the university is located. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has archival collections on the subjects of Southern History and Southern Folklife.2 Boston University's Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Library has collections dedicated to chronicling advances and famous moments in American art drama and public/ political life.3
The reason for highlighting the breadth and depth of historical archives is to give some idea of the difficulties facing archival researchers in the pre-digital age. Some of these archives were dauntingly vast in the amount of records they held. For example The Vatican Secret Archive had upwards of 52 miles of archival shelving. In an age where you could not simply enter your query into a search bar complete with Boolean operators the task of finding material

that pertained to your topic would have been difficult at the least. The Finding aid made the work of sifting through these vast archives much more manageable.4 A finding aid is a document that is put together by a archivist or librarian that contains information about the individual documents in a specific collection in an archive. These documents can be used to determine if the collection is relevant to a designated topic. Finding aids made it so a researcher did not have to blindly search through collection after collection hoping to find pertinent information. However in the pre-digital age a researcher still had to travel to the physical location of the archive and search through a card catalog of finding aids. Pre-Internet Data Storage
Organizing collecting and archiving information using physical documents without the use of electronics is a daunting task. Magnetic storage devices provided the first means of storing electronic data. As technology has progressed over the years so too has the ability to archive data using electronics. Long before the internet means of using

technology to help archive information were in the works. The early forms of magnetic storage devices that would later be used to archive information were invented as early as the late 1800s but were not used for organizing information until 1951 with the invention of the UNIVAC I.
UNIVAC I which stands for Universal Automatic Computer 1 used magnetic tape to store data and was also was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. Early computers such as UNIVAC I were enormous and sometimes took up entire rooms rendering them completely obsolete in today's technological society. But the central idea of using magnetic tape to store information is a concept that is still in use today.
While most magnetic storage devices have been replaced by optical storage devices such as CDs USB flash drives DVDs some are still in use today5. In fact the floppy drive is one example of a magnetic storage device that became extremely popular in the 1970s through the 1990s. Older 5.25" floppy discs have not been used for quite some time but the smaller 3.5" floppy discs aren't obs

olete yet. The 3.5" discs hold approximately 1.44 mgs of data and for years have been used by millions of people to back up the information on their hard drives.
Magnetic tape has proven to be a very effective means of archiving data as large amounts of data that dont need to be quickly accessed can be found on magnetic tape. That is especially true of aging data that may not need to be accessed again at all but for different reasons still needs to be stored just in case.6 Internet Age Archiving
With the explosion of the internet over the past couple decades archiving has began to make its way online. The days of using electronic devices such as magnetic tape are coming to an end as people start to use the internet to archive their information.
Internet archiving has become extremely popular for several reasons. As mentioned earlier the attempt to have as much information take up as little space a possible is very helpful for many archivers. Using the internet to archive allows for this to be possible as well many other benefits. There is no limit to how much information

one can store online in their archive. Internet archiving can be used to store as little information needed for a single person or for as much information needed for a major company. Internet archives can contain large-scale digitization as well as provide long term management and preservation of the digital resources similarly to the electronics used in the pre-internet data storage era. Along with the idea of storage benefits archiving via Internet ensures that ones information is safe. There is risk of misplacing your information or having it get destroyed by water or fire etc. Those are problems that may occur when archiving using floppy discs hard drives and computers Lastly the ability to access the information from almost anywhere is one of the main attractions to online archiving. As long as one has access to the internet they can edit and retrieve the information they are looking for.
Most institutions with physical archives have begun to digitize their holdings and make them available on the internet. Notably the National Archive and Records Administration in Washington

D.C. has a clearly defined initiative that was started in 1998 in an attempt to digitize many of their holdings and make them available on the internet.7 American Archives Month
October is officially noticed throughout the United States as American Archives month with the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland noticing the event as well. The month was founded in 1969 by the Michigan State University Archives & Historical Collections but now Archives Month is a collaborative effort by professional organizations and repositories. Their main point of American Archives month was and is to celebrate the importance of archives and to raise awareness about the value of archives. Lessons of how to preserve certain photographs and documents are also provided for each state. Each state normally celebrates the affair through a series of week-long events.8 The majority of the states get involved and plan out different sorts of activities that pertain to archiving.9 There is also a guide that goes into detail about planning for the event. For the most part each state coins a phrase each ye

ar to describe their interest in archiving. For example: Georgia: "Quench your thirst for History." North Dakota: "That's Entertainment." North Carolina: "Celebrating the NC Record."
Wisconsin was the most recent state to join National Archive Month joining in 2009 coining the phrase "Scrapbook Wisconsin." One of the major events is hosted by the staff at the University Archives & Historical Collections. They contribute to American Archives month by hosting a contest about trivia questions pertaining to archives but it is only open to MSU faculty staff and students MSU alumni and the greater Lansing community. External links
National Archives and Records Administration 1 Citations and References Archive.gov. National Records and Archive Administration 01 Dec. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2009 <http://www.archives.gov/research/start/>. The Louis Round Wilson Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 20 Nov. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2009 <http://www.lib.unc.edu/wilson/>. Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center 01 Dec. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2009 <http

://www.bu.edu/dbin/archives/index.phppid401>. University of Toronto Library Glossary. University of Toronto 15 Nov. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2009 <http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utarms/info/glossary.html>. (2009). Data Storage. Retrieved Dec. 7 2009 from Directory M articles Articles.DirectoryM.com 100 Franklin St 9th Floor Boston MA 02110. Web site: http://articles.directorym.com/DataStorage-a486.html. (2009). Data Storage. Retrieved Dec. 7 2009 from Directory M articles Articles.DirectoryM.com 100 Franklin St 9th Floor Boston MA 02110. Web site: http://articles.directorym.com/DataStorage-a486.html. Building an electronic records archive at the National Archives and Records Administration recommendations for a long-term strategy. Washington D.C: National Academies 2005. Print. (2009). CoSA-Directory of Archives Month and Archives Week Activities. Retrieved Dec. 7 2009 from Council of State Archivists. Web site: http://www.statearchivists.org/archivesmonth/AAM-directory.htm. Retrieved Dec. 7 2009. Web site: http://www.archivists.org/archivesmonth/EventPlanning.pdf.