Archivists identify, collect, organize, record, describe, preserve and display materials of historical value. They research and purchase items, select items that fit into an organization’s collection, keep detailed records, and preserve materials. Archivists manage a team and attend industry meetings. Their duties are similar to those of librarians and curators.
An archivist is an information professional similar to curators and librarians. Archivists identify, collect, organize, record, describe, preserve and display materials of historical value. Basically, an archivist’s primary duty is to present authentic and relevant slices of history in a cohesive manner.
Archivists are aware of the period and/or topic of the collection they archive. They research and purchase items to ensure that all archival materials are clearly identified. An archivist selects items that fit into an organization’s collection. Archivists must keep detailed records of the people, places, and dates involved in items chosen to be archived. These items could be handwritten notes, photographs, film, or many other possible materials.
Descriptions of collected items may be posted on company websites or in other public places, or may be used in museums. An archivist usually writes most of these descriptions. He or she must carefully record and document every detail of every item archived in a collection. Preservation is another responsibility of archivists. They are knowledgeable in the methods of how to store flat papers and three-dimensional materials.
An archivist must display collected items in a logical and informative way. Some archivists maintain that a collection of archival items should always tell a cohesive story about its subject and specific time period. Archivists must exercise professional care in their work and exercise ethics as well as savvy selection in choosing quality archival products. Archivists are always looking to archive useful items and strive to carefully choose historical materials.
There are two main types of archived collections: current and non-current. Non-current collections may be archived within a particular company or organization. The historical collections in circulation are displayed to the public, but are usually carefully preserved so that they cannot be directly touched. Archivists don’t spend all of their work time archiving materials, but they also tend to attend regular industry meetings and events. An archivist usually manages a team to help him record and preserve historic documents.
Archivist duties can be compared to those of librarians, as both types of information workers can collect, preserve, and display materials for organized public or private access. The duties of archivists and curators are also similar, as both tend to work with many different shapes, sizes and categories of materials. However, archivists describe materials very differently from librarians; they also tend to work with audiovisual formats that curators normally don’t work with.
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