Another thing is their provenance or who created them and the context in which they were created. It is this contextual approach, as well as a dedication to information access, that distinguishes archivists from ephemera collectors or paper dealers. Archivists strive to accumulate a complete grouping of records from an individual, family, business, or organization. A single document gains importance when seen in the larger context of the other records it was created with. Collectors and dealers, on the other hand, view historical documents individually and emphasize their monetary value rather than their informational value.
Records are critical to every citizen.
Such historical information has educational and legal importance. Archives preserve our written heritage, they establish our identity and protect our individual rights, they illuminate our past and establish a framework for our understanding of the past, and they are essential to the operation of our government, to businesses, to civic organizations, to churches, to individuals. They provide primary source material concerning actions, decisions, or events that occurred in the past which affect our lives today. Records are fundamental to the personal, social, and political relationships we form, relationships that are a part of our everyday lives. They define the responsibilities and commitments of these relationships.