On the most basic level, an archive is a collection of historical materials, usually one-of-a-kind primary sources that were created by an individual or institution, which are preserved in order to study the past. When we talk about archives, the term can refer interchangeably to the materials themselves (sometimes described as a collection), as well as to an institution or repository that holds them (though archival materials or collections are not always held by institutions). Archives, broadly speaking, represent some of the most important materials that historians and other scholars utilize to study the past, because they were produced by the historical figures that we study.
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