Storage and Archives

Abstract

The term “archive” has come to refer to a wide variety of storage and preservation functions and systems. Traditionally, an archive is understood to be a facility or organization that preserves records. It accomplishes this task by taking ownership of the records, ensuring that they are understandable to the accessing community, and managing them to preserve their information content and authenticity. Historically, these records have been in such forms as books, papers, maps, photographs, and film, which can be read directly by humans, or read with simple optical magnification and scanning aids. The major focus for preserving this information has been to ensure that they are on media with long-term stability and that access to this media is carefully controlled.