To see the brief description of our oral history collection click here . The Montana Historical Society has been the unofficial archives of Montana state government since 1865 and the official state archives since 1969. The job of the State Archives is to secure the transfer of inactive records that have permanent value and to provide for their preservation in a place and way that also permits reference use. The first is fairly easy to answer. Usually a record which is looked at less than once per month is considered an inactive or non- current record.
Permanent value is a little more tricky.
Definitions of permanent value include administrative value, legal value, fiscal value, historical and other types of research value, and evidential value. Most of us can understand why the state constitution has both legal and historical value, but the concept of evidential value is harder to grasp. Thinking in terms of public accountability rather than legal evidence makes it easier. The public and the legislature demand that state government does its job well. Thus it is important to save records which prove that government was doing what it was supposed to be doing and was doing it correctly.