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University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

MUS528: Music Research in Archives: What are Archives?

This guide will help you navigate Archon, the Sousa Archives' collection managment system.

Different meanings for one word



2. The division within an organization responsible for maintaining the organization's records of enduring value. Types of archives: Corporate, Government, Special Collections.

3. An organization that collects the records of individuals, families, or other organizations; a collecting archive.

4. The professional discipline of administering such collections and organizations.



What are archives?

Archives are the materials created either by a person, family or organization in the course of their life or daily business. These materials, often referred to as primary sources, are preserved because they have deemed to have enduring value, which means that they can be of use to other people outside of the realm in which these documents were created. Aside from paper-based documents such as letters, diaries, and business records, archives also keep photographs, electronic records, sound recordings, video footage, and artifacts of different kinds.

Are Archives Different from Libraries?


Archives are similar to libraries but they manage their materials in a slightly different manner. For instance, archives group their materials in collections or record series by creator.  This is called provenance, which means that all the documents created by one person or group are kept together to preserve their contextual information.  These materials are often kept in the same order that the creators originally had them in (when possible, of course) to facilitate access and to preserve the relationship between distinct sub-groups of material. This is called preserving the original order.

Archives do not circulate their holdings since these materials are unique and letting these materials leave our facility is a risk we'd rather not take. Since our materials come in varied formats, we tend to keep them in boxes and folders that you can request whenever you want to look at them. That's why you must always look at archival material in the archives, but that is easy and it only takes some preparation before your visit. 

Archives also have a record of their collections or record series in access tools called Finding Aids. These present you, the user, with a snapshot of the contents of a collection as well as an inventory of the contents of the boxes and folders.