n.a repository that holds records created or received for business purposesBakken 1982, 279For purposes of this article, “corporate archives” is taken to mean business archives programs operating within large, on-going corporations. The term is frequently used interchangeably with “business archives” though it is technically more specific.Van Camp 1982, 296At present, very few corporate archives have formal access policies. Most are still maintained strictly for internal use, and access decisions are left to the discretion of the archivist.Hives 1986, 42–43By the second half of the 1930s, it had become apparent that the Baker [Library at Harvard University] method of collecting business records was not practical given the ever-increasing volume of material. In addition, companies were becoming concerned about physical removal of records from their premises because they required the records for operational purposes or feared the records might be used against them in some way. As their recognition of the difficulties in collecting business records grew, historians undertook to convince large companies to preserve their own records. This, then, represents the beginning of the corporate archives movement and the gradual shift away from the idea of large, centralized collections of business records as a solution to the problem of providing adequate documentation for objective business history.Mitchell 1989, 49Archivists subsequently established a business archives committee for this purpose. Archivists have thus attempted to raise the historical consciousness of businessmen and have emphasized the economic benefits of corporate archives. These provide companies with research material to help solve current problems, documents that can be used as legal evidence, and material which can be used in public relations and advertising.Mitchell 1989, 64There is a danger of leaving to future generations a distorted view of our society’s economic structure if archivists concentrate on promoting the establishment of corporate archives and neglect the records of small businesses.Jones and Cantelon 1993, 2First and foremost, then, a corporate archives helps a business to understand itself: how it got where it is today, its strengths and shortcomings, and its role within its sphere of operations.Jones and Cantelon 1993, 7A number of corporate archives are the product of anniversaries, but others seem to have resulted from emergencies—a crisis in which key records had to be rescued. And as the reasons for their existence vary so, too, do the nature and scope of specific business archives—as well as their mission and place in the organizational structure.Jones and Cantelon 1993, 25Education of management to archival policies and procedures in important to the success of any corporate archives.Jones and Cantelon 1993, 91A company establishes a corporate archives to bring together and preserve records of enduring value.Carpenter et al. 2011, 11The corporate archives is an organizational repository that supports the mission of the business or corporate entity.Lasewicz 2015, 59Corporate archives are rarely considered strategic by their parent organizations, and their funding levels tend to reflect that lower priority status. This article suggests that corporate archivists could benefit from looking outside the profession for insights on how to build more compelling statements of their strategic value.SAA 2024Today, senior managers in an increasing number of companies recognize that preservation of corporate archives constitutes an important investment in their future. In addition to a growing number of publicly held companies, a variety of smaller businesses, health-care, research and non-profit organizations have added archives to their operations.
Notes
Although the terms corporate archives and business archives tend to be used synonymously and include businesses of any size, corporate archives often connotes the records of a large, for-profit business.
