Years of dedicated students receiving such fine education means that the profession is full of highly educated, highly motivated people who continually push to break the bounds of the traditional expectations of archivists. In academic archives, archivists do more than process, maintain, and preserve records. They read, analyze, and write about them, taking an active part in the creation of the historical record. In addition, archivists promote archival research for theses and dissertations by visiting college classrooms to promote the potential institutional as well as historical research projects that are available within archival records. Corporate archivists are more and more visible and play a greater role in determining the records management programs of the companies for which they work.
Many corporations use their archives as promotional public relations.
Company museums of memorabilia including selected records are open to the public and help bring the history of the company to life. The breadth of their corporate knowledge has led many archivists to upper management positions. The present goals of archivists extend beyond becoming leaders in the archival field to becoming leaders in society. The increased marketing of archives is the foundation of the gains made by the profession over the past twenty to thirty years. Archives are now familiar places among many in the general population.