Getting Started with Archives: About

What are archives?

The term "archives" encompasses a number of different ideas. The Society of American Archivists identifies twelve separate definitions, which often overlap in meaning. For the purposes of this guide, "archives" is defined as the records created or received by persons, families, or organizations and preserved for their enduing value.

The content of an archival collection is determined by the person, family, or organization responsible for its creation, and whatever life the collection had after its creation before being acquired by an archival repository. While gathered for a specific purpose by one or many actors, archives can be investigated by researchers for reasons different than that founding purpose. Many researchers, after consulting available primary and secondary source material, turn to archives for specific details about persons, organizations, subjects, events, or time periods - or for specific examples of material culture.

While traditionally thought of as unpublished manuscripts, archives can contain all kinds of published or unpublished media. Collections at NYPL hold correspondence and financial records, photographs and video, electronic records, microfilm, printed matter, sound recordings, and artifacts. An archivist consolidates information about the collection and its organization in a document called a finding aid.