Why do we say ‘an archives’?
In archives school, I showed up late one day and seemed to have missed the answer to a burning question: why do we call it ‘an archives’? Here’s an example of it in use from the United States National Archives. It has nagged at me ever since, but I always had more pressing mysteries to solve. Until today that is, when the mystery to solve was what to write for all of you. Why not learn about this together!
At face value, the s at the end of ‘an archives’ seems grammatically incorrect to me. ‘The archives’, referring to a collection of records, sure. ‘An archive’, referring to an institution that holds records, this sounds right. As anyone with a burning question is wont to do, I turned to Google, which led me to the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Society of American Archivists, who both had something to say on the matter.
Jennifer Wright of the Smithsonian Institution Archives cleared up the conundrum back in a 2010 blog post:
“First of all, unbeknownst to most word processors, "an archives" is a grammatically correct phrase. "Archives" is one of those words that can be either singular or plural, though it is relatively common to drop the "s" when referring to the singular. "Archives" can refer to a collection of archival materials, the facility in which the materials are stored, or the organization that collects and maintains them.”
Nellie Lowy reading a large illustrated Hebrew text amongst tall library shelving, caption on back of photograph reads, "Canadian Jewish Congress: Nellie Lowy working on Archive". July 15, 1959. JPL Archives, Photograph Collection. ID: 1255_PR011705
Expanding on that, the SAA Dictionary of Archives Terminology held this quote in its notes under the term archives:
“Frank Evans in 1964 examined the triple meaning of “archives,” yet uniquely suggested “the close relationship among them suggests that a single account encompassing all three will produce a series of more realistic and thus more readily recognizable pictures.”
From “The Many Faces of the Pennsylvania Archives,” American Archivist 27, no. 2 (April 1964): 271.
And the Oxford English Dictionary’s entry for archives (noun), nestled in ‘archive’, states that its usage is “now chiefly in plural”.
So, it seems that there is no secret reason that I had missed all those years ago, but rather just a grammatical anomaly. Anyone familiar with French would not be surprised... and French is where we get our term ‘fonds’ from anyways, so why not lean into the romantic influences.
Now we know!