[hamdingers]

They are, but archiving without publishing is pointless.

I occasionally wonder how many enormous collections of culture like that of Marion Stokes[1] have been lost because their curators made no effort to realize the value of their collection.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes

[mmooss]

Most archives - the ones in libraries, etc. - are not published, except they are available to qualified people who physically travel there. Most are not even fully indexed - nobody knows all of what's there.

[hamdingers]

My perspective is compatible with this fact. An archive that approximately nobody can access and/or nobody knows what it contains has no value to society at large, except the potential that it may some day be published.

The good news is I'd guess the number of (nonreligious/nonproprietary) institutionally managed pointless archives is dwindling.

[anabab]

> They are, but archiving without publishing is pointless.

One may collect/archive now (when the data is, well, "available"), and publish later, when copyright expires and the material will likely be harder to obtain.

[pastage]

Both are illegal, if you just hoard you will never know if what you have is useful. Only way to judge that is by letting people use it.