Establishing a new archive repository

Collated and edited by Ross Woods, 2026

When establishing a new archive repository, the planners should begin with questions about purpose, collecting scope, governance, preservation, access, and long-term sustainability. The most important questions are not merely technical. They concern what the archive exists to preserve, whose records it will hold, and how those records will remain trustworthy and usable over time.

1. Purpose and identity

The respository needs a raison d'être. (In some cases, the records could be handed over to a public library that would do all the work for free.)

A clear mission statement should guide later decisions about acquisition, staffing, access, and expenditure.

1. Why is the archive being created?
2. What institutional, community, legal, research, or cultural need will it meet?
3. Who are its intended users?
4. What should the archive be able to achieve in five, ten, or twenty years?
5. Is it primarily an institutional archive, collecting archive, community archive, research repository, digital repository, or a combination?
6. How will success be measured?

2. Collecting scope

The collecting policy should be narrow enough to be manageable but broad enough to fulfil the archive’s purpose.

1. What kinds of records will the archive collect?
2. Which organisations, communities, people, activities, subjects, geographical areas, and periods will it cover?
3. Will it collect only records created by its parent institution, or also accept materials from outside donors?
4. Will it collect paper documents, photographs, audiovisual materials, artefacts, websites, email, databases, social media, and born-digital files?
5. What will it deliberately not collect?
6. How will collecting overlap with nearby archives, libraries, museums, or repositories be managed?
7. Will the repository collect original materials, copies, or both?

3. Ownership and legal authority

Ownership, custody, copyright, and access rights should be stated separately because they are not necessarily held by the same party.

1. Who owns the repository?
2. Who owns the records placed in it?
3. Does the archive receive ownership, physical custody, or only permission to preserve and provide access?
4. What legal authority permits the repository to collect and retain records?
5. What documentation will be used for deposits, donations, transfers, loans, and copyright permissions?
6. Who holds copyright and other intellectual property rights?
7. Are there records affected by privacy, confidentiality, cultural restriction, child protection, national security, or commercial sensitivity?
8. What happens if a donor later asks for records to be returned or removed?
9. What jurisdiction’s laws apply?
10. In what circumstances might records be required in a court case?

4. Governance and accountability

A small repository still needs clear authority. Informal arrangements often become problematic when staff change.

1. Who will make policy decisions?
2. Who has final authority over acquisitions, disposal, access restrictions, and expenditure?
3. Will there be a governing board, archival committee, advisory group, or community representatives?
4. How will conflicts of interest be handled?
5. Who is accountable when records are lost, damaged, wrongly described, or improperly disclosed?
6. How often will policies be reviewed?
7. How will decisions be documented?

5. Appraisal and acquisition

The archive should not accept material merely because someone wishes to dispose of it.

1. What criteria will determine whether records are accepted?
2. What makes a record significant enough for permanent preservation?
3. How will evidential, informational, historical, legal, administrative, cultural, and community value be assessed?
4. Who may offer records to the archive?
5. Will the repository actively seek material or wait for deposits?
6. Can it refuse collections that are too large, poorly documented, hazardous, duplicated elsewhere, or outside scope?
7. Must records be organised before transfer?
8. Will donors be allowed to impose access restrictions?
9. How will undocumented or abandoned collections be handled?
10. What information about provenance and transfer must accompany each acquisition?

6. Records management relationship

An archive cannot work effectively if it is disconnected from the organisation’s records-management system. For an institutional archive:

1. At what point are active records transferred into archival custody?
2. Is there a records retention and disposal schedule?
3. Which records must be retained permanently?
4. Who is responsible for records before transfer?
5. How will email, shared drives, cloud systems, databases, and business systems be captured?
6. Will archival staff be involved when new information systems are designed?
7. How will unauthorised destruction be prevented?
8. How will records of enduring value be identified early enough to preserve them properly?

7. Physical location and facilities

A convenient location is not necessarily a safe archival location.

1. Where will the repository be located?
2. Is the site vulnerable to flooding, fire, pests, pollution, extreme heat, humidity, theft, or civil disturbance?
3. Is there adequate space for present holdings and expected growth?
4. Are storage, processing, staff, quarantine, digitisation, and researcher areas separated appropriately?
5. Can temperature and relative humidity be monitored and controlled?
6. Are shelves suitable for archival storage?
7. Are fire detection and suppression systems appropriate for archival materials?
8. Is there backup power?
9. Can the building be accessed safely by staff, researchers, and people with disabilities?
10. Is there room for future expansion?

8. Preservation

Digitisation is not a substitute for preserving original records unless there is a defensible reason for doing so.

1. What materials will require special preservation conditions?
2. What environmental standards are realistic for the local climate and budget?
3. How will the repository monitor temperature, humidity, light, mould, pests, dust, and pollutants?
4. Will incoming collections be inspected or quarantined?
5. What archival-quality boxes, folders, sleeves, and other enclosures will be used?
6. Who will carry out conservation work?
7. Which materials are too fragile to provide in their original form?
8. What will be digitised for preservation, and what will be digitised only for access?
9. Is there a disaster-preparedness and recovery plan?
10. What emergency supplies, insurance, and external assistance are available?

9. Digital preservation

Simply saving files on a hard drive does not constitute digital preservation.

1. What kinds of digital records will be accepted?
2. Which file formats are preferred?
3. How will files be transferred securely?
4. How will authenticity and integrity be verified?
5. Will checksums be created and checked regularly?
6. How many copies will be maintained, and in how many locations?
7. Will storage be local, cloud-based, or distributed?
8. How will obsolete file formats, software, databases, and storage media be managed?
9. How will email, websites, social media, and complex digital objects be preserved?
10. What metadata must accompany digital records?
11. How will access permissions and encryption keys be maintained?
12. What is the plan if a software vendor, cloud provider, or storage platform ceases operation?
13. How will accidental deletion, ransomware, and unauthorised alteration be prevented?
14. How will records be backed up?

10. Arrangement and description (acsessioning)

Description is not neutral. The language and structure of finding aids influence how records are discovered and interpreted.

1. Which descriptive standards will the repository use?
2. Will records be described by collection, series, file, item, or a combination?
3. How will provenance and original order be maintained?
4. How much processing can the repository realistically afford?
5. What minimum description is required before a collection can be opened?
6. What terminology will be used for people, organisations, subjects, places, and record types?
7. How will outdated, offensive, colonial, or discriminatory language in original records and older descriptions be handled?
8. Will descriptions be available online?
9. Can users search across collections?
10. How will corrections and new knowledge be added?
11. Will communities represented in the records have a role in description?

11. Access and use

Restrictions should be clearly justified, consistently applied, documented, and periodically reviewed.

1. Who may use the archive?
2. Is access free?
3. Must researchers register or provide identification?
4. Will access be onsite, online, or both?
5. What opening hours and response times are realistic?
6. Which records will be restricted, and for how long? Consider how you will manage personal information?
7. Who may approve exceptions to restrictions?
8. How will privacy, confidentiality, copyright, cultural protocols, and donor conditions be balanced against public access?
9. Can users photograph, scan, quote, publish, or reproduce records?
10. What fees, if any, will be charged?
11. How will fragile or high-value materials be supervised and handled?
12. How will reference enquiries be recorded?
13. How will the repository support users who cannot visit in person?

12. Ethics and representation

The archive should consider not only whether access is legally permitted, but also whether particular forms of access are ethically responsible.

1. Whose voices are strongly represented in the archive?
2. Whose voices are missing?
3. Does the collecting policy unintentionally favour powerful institutions or prominent individuals?
4. Are communities represented in the records involved in decisions about collection, description, access, and reuse?
5. Are there culturally sensitive, sacred, traumatic, or personally harmful materials?
6. How will records relating to children, vulnerable people, victims, or marginalised communities be managed?
7. Could online publication expose individuals to embarrassment, discrimination, surveillance, or danger?
8. How will requests for correction, contextualisation, restriction, or removal be considered?
9. Will the repository document its own collecting decisions and biases?

13. Staffing and expertise

A repository that depends on only one knowledgeable person is very vulnerable.

1. What professional archival expertise is required?
2. How many staff members are needed?
3. Which responsibilities can be handled by volunteers, interns, contractors, or students?
4. Who will manage digital preservation, information technology, conservation, cataloguing, copyright, and public services?
5. What training will staff receive?
6. How will knowledge be retained when staff leave?
7. Are responsibilities documented in position descriptions and procedures?
8. Is there adequate supervision for volunteers?
9. How will occupational health and safety risks be managed?

14. Technology and systems

The ability to export data is often more important than the attractiveness of the current interface.

1. What collection-management system will be used?
2. Does it support recognised descriptive standards?
3. Can data be exported in non-proprietary formats?
4. Can the system manage access restrictions and rights information?
5. Does it support digital objects as well as descriptive records?
6. Can it integrate with a website, discovery platform, digital preservation system, or institutional records system?
7. Who will administer and maintain it?
8. How will data be backed up?
9. What happens if the system becomes obsolete or unaffordable?
10. Can the repository migrate its metadata to another system?

15. Policies and procedures

The repository should consider whether it needs written policies for:

1. collection development
2. appraisal and acquisition
3. accessioning
4. deaccessioning and disposal
5. arrangement and description
6. physical preservation
7. digital preservation
8. access and reference services
9. privacy and confidentiality
10. copyright and reproduction
11. culturally sensitive materials
12. loans and exhibitions
13. security
14. disaster response
15. volunteer and researcher conduct
16. complaints, corrections, and takedown requests.

For each policy, planners should ask:

1. Who approves it?
2. Who implements it?
3. How is compliance recorded?
4. When will it be reviewed?

16. Financial sustainability

An archive should not accept permanent custody of records without considering the permanent financial obligation that follows.

1. What will establishment cost?
2. What will continuing operation cost?
3. Who will pay for staffing, storage, software, conservation, digitisation, insurance, and building maintenance?
4. Is funding recurrent or dependent on short-term grants?
5. What costs will increase as the collection grows?
6. Are donor restrictions attached to funding?
7. Can the archive sustain digital storage and migration indefinitely?
8. What services may appropriately attract fees?
9. What happens to the collection if funding ceases?

17. Partnerships and community relationships

Partnerships may make a small repository more sustainable, but responsibilities must be clearly documented.

1. Which organisations, communities, archives, libraries, museums, universities, and professional bodies should be consulted?
2. Can facilities, expertise, storage, digitisation, or disaster-recovery resources be shared?
3. Are there existing repositories that could preserve the materials more effectively?
4. How will donors and records creators be supported?
5. How will the archive build trust with communities whose records it seeks?
6. Will the repository provide education, exhibitions, publications, training, or community programmes?
7. How will users contribute information about unidentified people, places, and events?

18. Risk and continuity

The archive itself must preserve enough documentation to explain its decisions, systems, and history.

1. What are the greatest risks to the records?
2. What are the greatest risks to the organisation?
3. What would happen after a fire, flood, cyberattack, funding collapse, staff departure, legal dispute, or institutional closure?
4. Are vital documentation, catalogues, passwords, contracts, and recovery procedures backed up?
5. Is there a succession plan?
6. Could another repository assume custody if the archive closes?
7. Are ownership and transfer arrangements legally clear enough to permit that?
8. How frequently will risks be reassessed?

A foundational question

The question that should be asked repeatedly is “Can the repository preserve this material responsibly, describe it adequately, protect legitimate rights, and make it meaningfully accessible for as long as it has promised to do so? If the answer is uncertain, the repository may need to narrow its collecting scope, strengthen its resources, form partnerships, or postpone accepting particular materials.