You don't necessarily have to visit an archives in person to use their physical collections. Many archives offer reproduction services (photocopying or scanning) for collection materials that are not available online.

To get the most from these services:

• Learn as much as you can about their collections beforehand, including locating potentially relevant finding aids.
• Note or ask about the potential cost. Most repositories charge for reproduction services but many give discounts to students.
• Contact the repository's staff with your request.
• Be as specific and forthcoming as possible. Staff may be able to help narrow your search and advise you on the best approach to getting the information you need but could also be limited by how much you tell them about your search.

It can take a lot of time and resources for archives to put their collections online. In order to be accessed in a meaningful way, images and documents need to be scanned one at a time at high resolution; have descriptive information attached; and be individually uploaded to an interface that makes it easy for the public to sort through the materials. All of this takes a great deal of staff time, and professional scanners, server space, and high-quality public platforms are costly.

Sometimes other considerations beyond staff capacity might also limit what materials are made available digitally. For example, legal concerns or restrictions related to privacy or copyright might inform both if and how some documents are made available digitally.

As a result, many small archives may have few or no materials digitized and available online. Even large repositories like the Library of Congress do not have long-term plans to digitize more than a small fraction of their collections. Even if infinite resources were available, the fact is that most archives have a high volume of material that is likely to be of interest to only a very small population, so it is more efficient to provide access as the need arises.

Never interpret a lack of digitized material to mean that there aren't relevant archival sources for you. It just means that you may have to look at some finding aids or ask an archivist!

Even with online tools, archival research involving complex topics or more substantial projects will usually require reaching out to an archival institution. In most cases, the same guidance will be helpful whether your research necessitates visiting in-person or you reach out to repository staff for request remote researcher assistance.

View this presentation for some general tips