Karla,

You can learn more about the archival profession by looking at the Society of
American Archivists' web site.  But let me try to answer your questions from
my own perspective, since I work in an archives within a museum.  There are
three basic types of collecting institutions--libraries, archives, and
museums, and they often overlap in the kinds of things they collect and in
methodologies.  However, archives generally collect information-rich
documents, such as correspondence and other "papers", as well as audiovisual
materials, such as photographs, film, video, audio, etc., especially in their
original form.  The emphasis tends to be on "flat" or so-called
"two-dimensional" materials (understanding, of course, that every object
actually has three dimensions, even a piece of paper, but usually you're not
concerned about the third dimension), and I often think of a reel of film or
tape as just a flat strip that's been rolled up for convenience.  Archivists
operate within specific archival traditions, which generally emphasize
collection, arrangement, and description at the group rather than item level.
 "Archives" has at least two senses: (1) an archives traditionally is the
records generated by an organization or governmental body.  The National
Archives, for example, holds the records generated by the U.S. government.
(2) An archives is also a repository for groups of archival records from a
variety of sources.  It may collect corporate archives as well as the
personal papers of individuals.  I like to think, although this is not
strictly true, that archives emphasize the written or spoken word in its
original manifestation--manuscripts, typescripts, etc., but also original
documentary photographs, audio, video, etc., in which the information content
is paramount.  Published books are not usually found in archives because they
are more or less mass-produced copies, and are collected by libraries.
Because published books are not original, they can be used by readers with
minimal supervision within the library, and of course they can even be
circulated (borrowed) from the library.  By contrast, the original manuscript
of a book, perhaps containing the author's handwritten marginal notes, may be
housed in an archives or archival setting, cannot circulate, and the
reference archivist will look over your shoulder to make sure you're handling
the materials properly.  Both libraries and archives may have exhibit areas,
but reading or research is the primary service they provide for visitors, not
exhibition.

A museum collects artifacts of historical or aesthetic value, which usually
cannot be "read" in the same way that archival or library materials can.  The
"information" they contain requires some kind of accessory documentation and
interpretation.  They are more likely to include "three-dimensional"
materials, although of course in art museums such "two-dimensional" artifacts
as paintings and prints may prevail.  Museums may collect unique items, such
as archaeological objects, paintings, etc., as well as objects produced in
multiples, such as prints (etchings, engravings, etc.), or industrial
mass-produced objects.  Often even the mass-produced artifacts may have
historical associations and other specifc attributes which make them unique.
The museum tradition is to collect items individually (more or less) and to
catalog them at the item level.  (Archives assume that groups of records have
an internal relationship which makes group-level description more meaningful
and practicable.)  Museums, of course, emphasize public exhibition, while
providing research opportunities for specialists to study collection items
individually.  If I may slip in an editorial comment, I think many museums
are overemphasizing exhibition nowadays (because serving the "public" is more
attractive to funders than serving specialists), and sometimes scholars have
difficulty accessing collections in storage, which are increasingly found in
off-site locations.

Having said all that, the lines between these three groups are often very
blurry.  Many libraries, archives, and museums have "special collections" of
materials which don't fit their basic mandate.  My museum's "archives" (which
is not the archives of the museum in the sense of the records which the
museum generates--they go someplace else) is comparatively young, and
collects all kinds of "flat" documents which the museum originally did not
collect; it is really a "special collection," but it employs archivists
trained to handle archival materials and manuscript collections.  The Library
of Congress has some "special collections," such as musical instruments,
including Stradivarius violins, which one would not normally find in a
library.  The head of the institution is called "the" Librarian, but some of
its professional staff are called curators.  Many libraries, including LC,
collect unique or rare books and manuscripts.  But rare books and manuscripts
are also collected by museums--for their artifactual value as well as their
information (language) content.  The University of Maryland Baltimore County
library has a special collection devoted to photography which includes
historic photographs, art photographs, and even cameras and other
photographic equipment.  The head of the collection is called a curator,
because it's essentially a museum within the library, and they have a
permanent exhibition area as well as a gallery for temporary shows.

"Archives" is a very slippery term.  Some museums (unfortunately, I think)
call their collection managers archivists.  I remember when most of the staff
of George Eastman House in Rochester were called either curators or
curatorial assistants, but now the permanent museum collection is called the
"archives" and the collection managers are called archivists, although they
don't use traditional archival methodology.  Their "curators" collect, do
research, and organize exhibitions, but they don't catalog or manage the
collections.  I may be wrong, but I don't think their archivists are involved
with archival theory or associations.  To give them a plug, I think they
continue to serve individual scholars well, and perhaps calling their
collection an "archives" actually suggests that it remains accessible, and
not in dead storage.  Serving the needs of in-depth researchers tends to be a
hallmark of archives.

Archivists often perform their own elementary preservation work, although
professional conservators generally do more technical conservation
treatments.  Paper conservators can be found in archives, museums, and
libraries--but that's a whole separate field.  "Three-dimensional" object
conservators, of course, would work primarily in museums.

Another type of organization is the historical society.  Such organizations
often are a blend of archives and museums, sometimes libraries as well.  I'd
say that the main difference among the basic three organizations is tradition
and methodology.  The reason library science is a useful study for archives,
it seems to me, is that much of the theory and tradition is applicable to
both libraries and archives.  For example, MARC format cataloging is very
firmly entrenched in both the library and archival communities.  By contrast,
museums continue to struggle with a variety of different cataloging formats,
styles, and philosophies, although more standardization is coming into play.

One reason for the blending of traditions in some institutions is the reality
of the way collections are acquired.  Sometimes a major collection will
include museum artifacts as well as archival documents and personal papers
(which may include mass-produced reference books, pamphlets, etc.), plus
memorabilia, rare books, etc.  Institutions may have to establish separate
departments to deal with this variety, and museums end up establishing
archival special collections, and archives and libraries develop museums.
Another "blend" which occurs to me is in the archives of the Art Institute of
Chicago, which contains within a single department not only the business
records of the museum, but also special collections, such as artists' papers,
etc.  Administrative arrangements in collecting institutions can be widely
varied, hence confusing, and the flexibility (sometimes sloppiness) of the
nomenclature can be mind-boggling.

Sorry for the length of this explanation, but I hope it helps.  In the
process, I think I've just written half of an encyclopedia entry I'm working
up on photographic archives.

David Haberstich.

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