ARCHIVAL AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A Framework to Connect Them in Practice

This chapter aims to guide archives managers responsible for safeguarding society’s documentary heritage worldwide into the fourth industrial revolution. Our goal is to help them understand disruptive technologies based on the artificial intelligence (AI) paradigm and how to use these tools to develop new and different models for archival processes. In the third decade of the 21st century, progress in the AI field has experienced a boom while impacting developed techniques, algorithms, and tools whose pervasiveness is increasing drastically. Owing to the achieved maturity of the AI discipline, we can begin to imagine the use of its derived technologies in cultural heritage organizations like Archives. The digital humanities approach is relevant for archives managers to understand and visualize AI applications within appraisal, description, preservation, and access for archives. Nevertheless, the following questions arise: What is AI precisely? How could AI be employed in archives? How can AI techniques be applied to do more efficient archival processes? Are there tools based on AI useful in archival methods efficiently, and which are they? What kind of profiles are needed to implement these tools? In this chapter, we try to answer these questions and outline a framework to connect archival with AI. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Isabel Galina Russell and Glen Layne-Worthey; individual chapters, the contributors.

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