Corporate archives in the wild

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the archives management practices and needs of corporations that do not employ professional archivists and propose strategies for helping corporations manage and preserve their archives. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was distributed to non-profit and for-profit corporations located in the XX area, USA. Findings The majority of surveyed corporations did not have archivists on staff and were not satisfied with their archives management practices. Many of them have unaddressed archives management needs and preferred no-cost or low-cost approaches to address those needs. Most surveyed corporations had digital archives but lacked knowledge about digital archiving. Free archiving resources and services provided by libraries/archives were dramatically less well known than commercial archiving resources and services. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the very few empirical studies on corporate archives not under professional control. Findings from this study inspired thoughts on how archival education programs, professional associations, cultural heritage organizations and other relevant parties could help corporations better manage and preserve their archives.