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Archives Collection

This guide supports faculty, staff, students, and guests by providing information about the Lambton College archives and research activities pertaining to our documented history.

What are Archives?

Archives are the records that are created and accumulated by an organization or an individual through the course of their activities. These records are kept because of their enduring historical or legal value.

The records found in our archive collection are unique and therefore must be managed and stored to preserve them for current and for future use for many years to come.

Examples of archival materials are:

  • Course Calendars
  • Meeting minutes and agendas
  • Yearbooks
  • Sports Teams Memorabilia
  • Financial records 
  • Newspaper Articles
  • Photographs
  • Video Recordings
  • Architectural Plans and Sketches
  • Maps

Archival Definitions

 

  • Accession or Reference Number - A number or code assigned to uniquely identify a group of records or materials acquired by a repository and used to link the materials to associated records. 
  • Acid-free paper - Paper with a pH of 7.0 or greater when manufactured.
  • Acquisition - materials physically and officially transferred to a repository as a unit at a single time OR the process of seeking and receiving materials from any source by transfer, donation, or purchase.
  • Analog - not digital.
  • Archival - pertaining to archives and having enduring value to the collection.
  • Classification - 1. The organization of materials into categories according to a scheme that identifies, distinguishes, and relates the categories. 2. The process of assigning materials a code or heading indicating a category to which it belongs. 3. The process of assigning restrictions to materials, limiting access to specific individuals, especially for purposes of national security; security classification.
  • Collection development - the set of activities and policies associated with acquiring and selecting archival resources
  • Digital object A digital object is a digital representation of some or all of the material in an archive collection. This may be a digital surrogate, or it might be born-digital material, such as a digital photograph or mp3 recording. Digital objects are often available online.

 

Difference Between Libraries and Archives

Libraries Archives
Open stacks - Users are free to browse the material on the shelves. Closed Stacks - Users are not permitted in the stacks to browse.  The archival material is held in a locked, environmentally controlled room.
Circulating - Material may be checked out of the library. Non-circulating - Material may not leave the archival repository.  It must be consulted on site in a designated area.
Multiple copies of material exist in other libraries or are available to researchers. Unique materials - No other copies of the material exist.
Material is catalogued at an individual level (e.g. a record for a single book) Materials are arranged and described at different levels: fonds level, series, level, file level, item level.