By contrast, original documents need only your eyes and a light source to read, and procedures for curation and conservation are well established. Paralleling the computer revolution is a fundamental shift in the American building industry from new construction to work with existing buildings. More construction dollars are being spent repairing, rehabilitating, modernizing, enlarging, and restoring the buildings around us than on building new ones. Every one of those projects with an existing building requires accurate information about the existing conditions as baseline documentation upon which to plan the new work. Any architect will rejoice at finding the original drawings for a building, whether carefully conserved in an archive, online from the HABS collection, stuffed in a file drawer in the permits office, or a worn but jealously guarded set in the office of the building superintendent.
Architectural records are an essential tool for architectural practice in the twenty-first century.
Archives are investing enormous sums of money and resources in developing digital access to their collections, led by the Library of Congress' National Digital Library and American Memory Project to put the essential documents of American history on the Internet. A fifty-fold increase in use has been achieved without increased risk to the original documents, an archivist's dream. Changes to the profession of architecture have highlighted the importance of architectural records not just for historical uses but for everyday use in the management of our built environment. Digital technologies are already aiding in the production of architectural records, from CAD drawings, to construction and facility management software. Digital technologies are also key to making our historic architectural records available to the profession and to the public.