Primary source materials located in digital collections are available in physical form elsewhere, most often in an archive. See Types of Archives from the Society of American Archivists (SAA).
Archives are collections of rare or unique first-hand information, known as records, in various forms including, but not limited to:
See What are archives? from The National Archives (UK). See Archives and Special Collections (UCLA Library)
These are some other important archive terms and concepts.
Fonds :a collection of records originating from the same creator (person, organization, agency etc.) emerge from the creators work and life. See Dictionary of Archives Terminology.
Archival Organization: Fonds --> (Sub-Fonds) --> Series --> (Sub-Series) --> File --> Item
*A series may be held in one or more boxes with folders. See the image below of Tip O'Neill Congressional Papers stored in archival boxes with Series and Subseries information on the labels.
"Archival boxes" by Burns Library, Boston College is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Provenance aka custodial history: the individual, family, or organization that created or received the items in a collection. (Items from the same origin are kept together.) See Dictionary of Archives Terminology.
Finding Aid / Collection Guide: Description of an archival resource including provenance, scope, organization and arrangement, and an inventory of series and folders. Some findings aids may include single item descriptions. See Dictionary of Archives Terminology.
Metadata: “data about data”; information to describe a resource. See Dictionary of Archives Terminology.
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