The Archiving Department is in charge of ensuring the physical preservation and handling of the historical documents held by the Israel State Archives in the best possible way.

The department is responsible for providing appropriate storage facilities and conditions for safeguarding  permanently deposited material.

The Israel State Archives storage rooms are equipped with advanced systems for protection of the material: an air conditioning system designed to create and maintain the optimum climatic conditions for preservation of archival material; a flood-prevention system and systems to prevent fire, break-ins and sabotage.

The Archive storage rooms consist of  some 6,000 sq.m. and contain around 150,000 standard archiving containers.

Handling all types of archival material, which includes various kinds of paper, audio and video tapes, photographs, CDs and more, requires knowledge and expertise, careful attention and plenty of patience.

The Archiving Department is also in charge of the special storage facility for audio-visual material and magnetic media. This room is kept at climatic conditions uniquely suited to this type of documentary material.

Routine work at the department includes receiving and processing new documentation for archiving and location, loan and return of documentation for purposes of review and research and for administrative and legal purposes.

As part of its efforts to preserve material and improve its service to the public, the Archiving Department is also engaged in microfilming records and scanning them onto magnetic media.