There are many varieties of archives, and the types of materials they collect differ as well. Defining your research topic and knowing what sorts of materials you are looking for will help you determine the appropriate institutions to contact. Here is a brief overview of repository types: 1)College and university archives are archives that preserve materials relating to a specific academic institution. Such archives may also contain a "special collections" division. College and university archives exist first to serve their parent institutions and alumni, and then to serve the public. 2)Corporate archives are archival departments within a company or corporation that manage and preserve the records of that business. These repositories exist to serve the needs of company staff members and to advance business goals. Corporate archives allow varying degrees of public access to their materials depending on the company's policies and archival staff availability. 3)Museums and archives share the goal of preserving items of historical significance, but museums tend to have a greater emphasis on exhibiting those items, and maintaining diverse collections of artifacts or artwork rather than books and papers. Any of the types of repositories mentioned in this list may incorporate a museum, or museums may be stand-alone institutions. Likewise, stand-alone museums may contain libraries and/or archives.
Based on the "FOIA" Freedom of Information Act, government rcords are "free", it means that all of the must be acessble to citzens anywhere at any time, with the advance of internet whe have our first possibility, we can go to museuns, Federal Universities, Libraries and some Federal Agencies.
