archiver

An archiver is a person or a system that collects and preserves records of historical, cultural, administrative, or personal value. In institutions, an archiver manages the life cycle of records from creation to eventual disposal, ensuring long-term accessibility and authenticity. Key tasks include appraisal, selection of materials for preservation, arranging and describing holdings (finding aids), accessioning, and storage management. Archivers also perform preservation actions, such as digitization, metadata capture, format stabilization, and migration to new storage media to counter obsolescence. Standards such as Dublin Core, MARC, PREMIS, and the OAIS reference model guide practice, metadata, and long-term access strategies. Ethical and legal considerations, including privacy, copyright, and provenance, shape collection policies.

In computing, an archiver is a software tool or library that compresses and packages files into archive formats such as ZIP, TAR, RAR, or 7z. Archives reduce storage requirements and can bundle related files for transfer or long-term storage. An archiver may support metadata, multi-volume archives, integrity checks, and encryption. Archival vs backup: archiving emphasizes long-term preservation, minimization of data loss, and documentation of provenance, while backup emphasizes quick recovery of recent data.

Digital archiving addresses challenges like data degradation (bit rot), format obsolescence, and evolving hardware. Strategies include redundancy, regular refresh, format migration, and emulation. Archival repositories may be physical, digital, or hybrid, and institutional repositories, national archives, and libraries often maintain standards-compliant archives for research, governance, and cultural heritage.