Nature and Scope of Archives a Study

Abstract

The word ‘Archives’ is commonly used for denoting the records and other documents as well as the institution which holds the records. Archives is a store house of information concerning all factors of human life. Since it is the emporium of all the activities of mankind from time immemorial to the present, it depicts the customs, conventions and usage of people. Historians and writers are fully dependent upon the documents and records of the archives for portraits of the life and activities of their predecessors. The British Government is popularly called the paper Government because they recorded all matters on paper and preserved them for future reference.

Their preservation of records in India and England benefited the histories and gave new enlightment to the subject on Indian study. They paid special attention for preserving their records by establishing actives both in national and regional level in the western model. The increasing mass of record and a better appreciation of their value as public Archives led the Government to establish an independent Record Department in 1909.  Therefore, the Madras Record office was built in Egmore area of Chennai. This neo – Gothic building (Indo – British Architecture) was planned with open spaces for future expansion and constructed to provide maximum protection to the records. It is still occupied by the Tamil Nadu Archives today, after India’s Independence, the institution was named as Madras State Archives in 1969. It acquired its present name in 1973, following the renaming of Madras State Archives in to Tamil Nadu State Archives and Historical Research. An archive is one of the biggest Archives and Research Institution in South East Asia. The Prime function of these Archives in the past was generally to supply records to the Departments of Secretariat for reference to run the day – to– day administration of Government.