What are data archives?
Data archives are resource centres for analysts who use data for research and teaching. Their functions usually include:

• ensuring that data are preserved against technological obsolescence and physical damage
• checking, validating and preparing data and accompanying user documentation
• cataloguing their technical and substantive properties for information and retrieval
• supplying them in an appropriate form to secondary users
• supporting users in using the data

The social science data archiving movement began in the 1960s within a number of key social science departments in the United States who stored original coded interview data deriving from academic surveys. The movement spread across Europe and in 1967 the UK Data Archive (UKDA) was established by the UK Social Science Research Council (now the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)). In the late 1970s many national archives joined wider professional organisations to foster co-operation on key archival strategies, procedures and technologies; encourage the exchange of data and technology across national boundaries; and promote the acquisition, archiving and distribution of electronic data for social science teaching and research.