archivalization

Archivalization is the systematic process of preserving, organizing, and providing access to archival records to ensure their long-term authenticity, reliability, and usefulness. It covers both physical materials, such as paper, photographs, and artifacts, and digital content, including born-digital records and digitized media.

Core activities include appraisal and selection of materials, accessioning, arrangement and description, and conservation. Preservation planning addresses the ongoing care of records, emphasizing authenticity and provenance. For digital materials, archivalization adds digitization of analog items, capture of descriptive and preservation metadata, and strategies to counter obsolescence, such as file-format migration, emulation, and storage in trusted digital repositories.

Standards and frameworks guide archival practices. The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model frames long-term digital preservation. Preservation metadata standards such as PREMIS document evidence of authenticity and integrity. Descriptive metadata standards like Dublin Core, EAD, and METS support discovery and access. Workflows typically rely on archival formats with longevity, such as PDF/A for documents, TIFF for images, and lossless formats for audio and video.

Roles and challenges are governed by professional norms and institutional policies. Archivists, records managers, and curators collaborate to ensure provenance, authenticity, and appropriate access while respecting privacy and copyright. Digital preservation faces ongoing challenges, including data decay, format drift, scalability, and costs. Notable applications include national archives, university and corporate archives, and web archives such as the Internet Archive, which demonstrate the broad societal value of archivalization.