The Differences and Similarities between Managing Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Audiovisual Archives

Archives, libraries, museums and audiovisual archives are organizations which deal with building collections, organizing information resources, preserving them and making them available for users. However, so far, especially in Iran, the differences and similarities of these four organizations have not been discussed, therefore the exact relation between them is not clear. Each of these four organizations can have every kind of information resources such as books, journals, records, and audiovisual materials and deal with them based on their own interests. Ways of gathering resources, keeping and preserving them and the method of access to information is different in each of these organizations. Generally, these four organizations have their own concepts and characteristics. They gather and organize a collection and make it accessible according to their duty, status, users, financial and human resources, and other restricting or promoting factors. With The emergence of the internet and the development of new technologies, these organizations are facing challenges. Digitalizing resources and making them accessible in electronic environments has caused some people to conclude that these four organizations are gradually merging and that they may even disappear and new technologies may replace them.