While the application is free to download and use, ArchivesSpace and its community are sustained by membership. The talking points below were developed to help you craft your proposal for ArchivesSpace membership at your organization.  These talking points are grouped according to the different types of stakeholders that may be at your organization and arguments that could be effective for them.

Download a pdf version of these points

Enhancing your professional network and skills
For archivists and others working directly with collections

ArchivesSpace membership helps you and your staff in many concrete ways.

• Membership provides users with tangible benefits, like access to the User Manual, user tutorial videos, technical support, access to member-only events and training, and eligibility to serve on governance groups.
• Membership opens up the opportunity to interact and collaborate with archivists from a variety of institutions – from major, international research universities to local historical societies – all working to better implement archival standards, workflows, and best practices.
• Membership helps users utilize ArchivesSpace, a standards-based application, to the fullest extent by tapping into the knowledge of a broad and diverse archival community.

Enhancing Your Digital Infrastructure
For your IT or Systems department, Digital Archivists, Managers and Directors

ArchivesSpace represents essential investment in digital infrastructure for archives. 

• ArchivesSpace is an essential component of your digital infrastructure.  It enables staff to manage metadata, gain and maintain intellectual and physical control over collections, automate more activities, and be more efficient.  The functions it supports are vital within an overall archives workflow, and ArchivesSpace represents a significant technological leap forward in how these functions are performed compared to other options. Using open source technology supported by a diverse community provides considerable financial and staffing savings, and investing in it through membership ensures the ArchivesSpace platform will remain stable and continue to develop.
• ArchivesSpace offers options for providing web access to collection descriptions, including its own public user interface with dynamic search options.
• ArchivesSpace is flexible. The API allows for easy integration  with other systems in use at your organization.

Enhancing Your Organization’s Leadership in the Field
For leaders at your organization, project managers, University Librarians, Deans, Directors, Board Members

ArchivesSpace’s sustainability relies on forward-thinking institutions demonstrating their leadership through active membership.

• While not everyone needs to be a member to use ArchivesSpace, ArchivesSpace needs membership to be sustainable. Membership also protects your significant investment of staff time and other resources.
• Members can serve on advisory councils and other governance groups within ArchivesSpace.  Council members serve as a voice in the user community, advocate for the future direction of the application, and determine development priorities for the application.
• Other institutions look to leaders for best practices and what they should be doing.  ArchivesSpace member organizations are impactful leaders in the ArchivesSpace user community and also in the archives community across the globe.