Since the beginning of civilization, humans have been recording experiences and transactions. The earliest records are found in a plethora of media. For example, Babylonians created clay tablets to document their trade in slaves and real estate. Similarly, the Athenians preserved their most important documents (laws, treaties, and other state documents) in the temple of Matroon (mother of the gods). However, the first official archive in the ancient world, the Tabularium, was founded in Rome by Quintus Lutatius Catulus, in 79 B.C. Following the decline of Rome, the idea of the state creating and maintaining archives fell apart, and record keeping became a responsibility for local authorities for some time. Modern archives began in 1543 at Simancas in Spain, however archives, as a function of the state, did not have its inception until the French Revolution when the French National Assembly established the Archives Nationales in 1790. In 1838, England established a central archives, now known popularly as the Public Records Office. The United States did not establish the National Archives until 1934 (before that some official documents were held at the Library of Congress). Now it is commonplace for governments, universities, churches, and businesses throughout the world to maintain an archives.

Two features dominate the content of documents: impartiality and authenticity. Documents are said to be impartial because they are drawn up not with the intention of history, but with meeting current administrative, legal, or fiscal requirements. They are impartial to history showing no biases towards posterity. This leads to their second feature which is authenticity. While their have been examples of forged documents, such as the infamous anti-Semitic, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," or the “Donation of Constantine," we can generally infer that when documents are created their initial causality is for evidential purposes. However, just because a forgery is a deliberate act to mislead, it should not be simply discarded. The reason is that a forgery will tell us more about a society then a legitimate document. For example, going back to “Protocols of the Elders of Zion," this document told us more about the misconceptions about Jews within the Czarist regime and culture than any other document. So, even though what is stated was false, it allowed us a window into the thoughts and mindset of those record creators, and who the record creators wanted to influence.

Eminent American historian, Professor Charles M. Andrews (1863-1943):

“The more it is realized that the true history of a State and a people lies not in episodes and surface events, but in the substantial features of its constitutional and social organization, the more will archives be valued and preserved. No people can be deemed masters of their own history until their public records, gathered, cared for, and rendered accessible to the investigator, have been systematically studied and the importance of their contents determined……It has been well said that “the care which a nation devotes to the preservation of the monuments of its past may serve as a true measure of the degree of civilization to which it has attained." Among such monuments, and holding first place in value and importance, are public archives, national and local."

Universities like YSU and other entities such as government agencies, businesses, churches, produce countless documents and materials. Every department and office saves their documents and materials, and when particular documents and materials are no longer needed or relevant for daily operations, they are removed. Despite their unusable status in the department or office they were created, many of the documents and materials have legal, fiscal, administrative, historical importance, and will be accessioned to an archives. Governmental archives have an additional responsibility for public use, to protect the rights of the people.

Besides legal, fiscal, administrative, and historical importance, another important reason for the existence of archives is a cultural one. Public archives, which include books, manuscripts, and museum objects, are one of the many types of cultural resources. They are as important a cultural resource as paintings and sculptures, monuments, landscapes, archaeological sites, buildings, and religious beliefs and practices. Public records are the ultimate proof for all permanent civic rights and privileges; and the immediate proof for all temporary property and financial rights that are derived from or are connected with the citizen’s relations to the government. The modern archivist is concerned with the records of a given agency, which includes maintaining the original arrangement of given agency’s records and that such records should be kept in their entirety, without any mutilation, alteration, or unauthorized destruction. For historians, authoritative historical work will always rely on oral tradition, personal memoirs, and other semi-official works, but it is doubtful that new history will be written without the cumulative and verifiable sources found in archival depositories. (Archives Administration, 1)

The mission of an archives is three fold:

• to identify records and papers of enduring value


• to preserve them


• to make them available to patrons

This three-fold mission can be unfolded into several parts:

1. Aim of the Archives – what the archives mission will be centered around (government records, agency, corporation, theme, or geographic area)


2. Conducting Surveys – a survey is a qualitative and quantitative procedure utilized to locate items that meet the aim of an archives


3. Appraisal – is the process of determining the value of records by using historical, philosophical, sociological, and hermeneutical tools.


4. Acquisitions – this area is concerned with actual acquiring of records and the creation of policies governing collecting records and papers.


5. Accessioning – is the actual transfer of records (physical and intellectual control is established here)


6. Arrangement – the organization of records according to proper archival standards.


7. Preservation – the protection of records from physical deterioration and damage.


8. Security – safeguarding of records from natural and human actions.


9. Description – writing guides that will make records accessible


10. Access and Reference – creation of policies and procedures to govern the accessibility of records


11. Outreach and Promotion – creation of policies that will inform people of the existence of records.