That archives and museums each in their own way are fundamental to preservation and understanding of our cultural heritage goes without saying. It comes as no surprise either that archives are essential both to effective and insightful management of each and every museum, and to informative and engaging interpretation of objects. Because museums create, use, and must maintain records, and because archives complement museums in fulfilling both a cultural and educational role on the one hand and an administrative need on the other, museums need to manage their record holdings professionally and to determine the extent of the archival function most appropriate to their mission. Archives pure and simple are records created in the conduct of affairs for the purpose of facilitating and of documenting those affairs. What distinguishes each body of archives from any and all other bodies of records is that they are that small portion of the total that has enduring value.
Archives are unique.
What makes them so is that they came into existence and performed service as an intimate part of events and then remain as the tangible residue of those events. Archives are records created for the dual purposes of forwarding and of establishing a record of those events. But since the records that form the body of archives come into existence purposefully as the direct result of the creator conducting the affairs of the creator, they are not collected at all. Archivists distinguish kinds of archives on the basis of the archival repository that holds them. The distinction is a fundamental one, especially for museums, because the two kinds of archives are held for different purposes.