What are the different types of archives?
Table of Contents
There are generally 3 types of archives in enterprise IT:
- Governance archives (aka. legal hold or compliance archive).
- Cold storage archives.
- Active archives.
What are the 2 types of archiving?
Types of archives
- College and university archives: typically preserve materials related to the university or college.
- Corporate archives: manage and preserve records of that business.
- Government or national archives: may collect materials related to all levels of government.
What are some of the most common formats used to store archival data?

Smithsonian Institution Archives Digital Preservation Formats
Type | Primary Preservation Format (preferred) | Secondary Preservation Format (acceptable) |
---|---|---|
Images | TIFF (uncompressed) | JPG DNG PNG JP2 |
Graphics | TIFF | |
Video | Motion JPEG 2000, MOV, AVI | MPEG-4 |
Audio | BWF-Broadcast WAV (.wav is the extension) | WAV AIFF FLAC |
What is archival research methodology?
Archival research is research that involves searching for and extracting information and evidence from original archives. Archives are historical – non-current – documents, records and other sources relating to the activities and claims of individuals, entities or both.
What is best archive file?
- WinZip. The original and best file compression tool. TODAY’S BEST DEALS.
- WinRAR. The best file compression software for RAR files. TODAY’S BEST DEALS.
- 7-Zip. The best free file compression software. TODAY’S BEST DEALS.
- Zip Archiver. Best for advanced file compression.
- PeaZip. Best free file compression tool for Linux.
What is an example of archival research?

Archival Research is the investigation of hard data from files that organizations or companies have. US Census data are archival data. Telephone bills that are in the computers of the telephone company are another example.
How do you organize archival research?
The basic steps in the archival research process are the following:
- Develop your research question.
- Define your research needs.
- Conduct background research.
- Think about the kinds of sources you hope to find.
- Search for and identify collections and repositories.
- Read archival finding aids and collection guides.
How are archives important for research?
Archive content provides transparency of findings through time, giving researchers a unique opportunity to uncover early research and track developments. Early records ensure research continuity, preserve historically significant information and secure academic knowledge for future generations.
What is the difference between records and archives?
is that record is an item of information put into a temporary or permanent physical medium while archive is a place for storing earlier, and often historical, material an archive usually contains documents (letters, records, newspapers, etc) or other types of media kept for historical interest.
What are the characteristics of archives?
Archives have several characteristics:
- They are only retained if they are considered to be of long-term historical value.
- They are not created consciously as a historical record.
- Documents do not have to be ‘old’ to be an archive, just no longer required for the use for which they were created.
Which file format is best suited for archival purpose?
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is universally considered a good format for archiving photo collections.
- Just like DNG, TIFF is a documented format (also an ISO standard), likely to be supported long into the future;
- TIFF can provide the highest quality when saved uncompressed or with lossless compression;