As organizational units, archives are part of the larger entity whose records they maintain, and their primary mission is to serve that institution. Thus, the Montana State Archives, an agency of state government, preserves the official records of Montana state agencies and elected officials. In contrast, manuscripts collections are the records created or gathered by an organization or individual but transferred from the original custodian to a collecting repository, such as a state historical society or university library. Such repositories collect organizational records and personal papers from many different sources, primarily to serve researchers outside their own organization. The Montana Historical Society Archives collects and preserves such private manuscripts.
Historical records take many forms.
Not all are made of paper nor are all composed of written words. Photographs, films, audio recordings, drawings, maps, and computerized data, as well as paper documents, can be historical records. They are records saved because archivists have determined they have some probable future value. Historical records may have many different potential uses which justify their preservation after they are no longer needed in daily activity. They are most likely to be used for research by the general public and scholars, in administrative reference, during the establishment of legal rights and claims, and for fiscal accountability.