Archives are dedicated to preserving permanently valuable records of people, institutions, businesses, and governments. As unique documentary evidence of past events, archival records are the facts we use to interpret and understand history.
Archives exist in many contexts: colleges, corporations, governments, religious organizations, historical societies, and even private individuals operate archives.
Archives are information repositories for firsthand records. Whereas a library collects copies of published material, archival materials are typically unique, unpublished, primary sources and do not circulate.
Records in archives serve as the “raw material” for personal, professional, and academic study. An archives may collect all types of material in analog or digital format: text, image, audiovisual, and artifactual.
Examples include letters, diaries, reports, photographs, and audio and video recordings.
Partially adapted from resources by the Society of American Archivists and Rob Lagueux (Berklee Online)
Accepted Culminating Experience Projects are made publicly accessible via the Berklee Archives' institutional repository. Below we explain the principles behind this policy.
Institutional Repositories
Institutional repositories (IRs) are hubs for the scholarship and creative activity that emerge from research. IRs typically capture, preserve, and disseminate the intellectual output of a particular academic community or discipline.
Open Access
Scholarship, by definition, involves dissemination--making research available for a broader public scrutiny. Scholarly communication depends on access to research. Providing direct, unrestricted access to content improves opportunities for knowledge exchange.
The Importance of Depositing Your CE in Berklee's Institutional Repository
Berklee’s open-access digital institutional repository, managed by Berklee Archives, aids to further research and scholarship by making its collections of scholarly and creative work by Berklee faculty and students readily accessible to the Berklee community and beyond.
By depositing your culminating experience work in Berklee’s institutional repository, you contribute to the larger scholarly and creative conversations in your field. Your work becomes a potential source for some other future researcher or student.
Additionally, publication in an online-accessible digital repository grants you, the creator, an entry in your professional or academic portfolio to share with potential employers, admissions offices, etc.