”The architecture of the archive and the sentinels who control access to its interiors suggest that the conservation and transmition of knowledge has been, at least historically, the prerogative of a few chosen agents, of a coterie of privileged agents.” After spending time with all of the different archives you learn to appreciate their different aspects and contributions to the transmition of knowledge.
The MITH vintage computer archive provides a wide array of computational knowledge which demonstrates a description scheme and model for preservation and use of computing devices. As stated in the lecture, the primary goal of archives is to preserve and share the knowledge. One of the things that the MITH archive did for me was not only inform me but to prove me that ”there could be no archiving without… the archontic principle of legitimization, without criteria of classification and of hierarchization, without order and without order in the double sense of the word’
Text and Medium: Intro to Digital Humanities 
Archiving as both a container and tool for accessing and connecting information due to its categorization methodology draws parallel to the function of indexing. I agree that the preservation of knowledge is vital to what an archive is, but the concept of legitimization and hierarchization (as noted by you) seem just as vital to an archives existence. Archiving could also been seen as an amalgam of its collection and retrieval methodology. The container of information sans a logical framework by which it can understood begs the question of what an archive really is. Indexing, understood as the necessary paralogical binding of the information, distinguishes a body of information (i.e. all the trash in my trash can) from a “true” archive.
Without this legitimization, an archive could not exist in our current understanding. Claiming an archive can be any body of info begs the question of where one archive begins and another ends. An archive must be contextualized and understood by its organizational logic to avoid this dilemma.
MITH’s Vintage Computer Archive is filled with wonderful specifications on some of the most sought-after technology of past generations. It is a great site that can enlighten and entertain the smartest of computer enthusiasts. But what exactly makes in an archive?
Due to the fact that everyone is going to have their own definition of what constitutes an “archive”, or what are considered “archival properties”, archival theory is an interesting topic of discussion in our class. While Ricky brings up a valid point considering the plethora of information in the MITH Vintage Computer Archive, Jacob states that, in order to have a body of information be considered an archive, there must be some kind of indexical function. I must agree, seeing as how the main purpose of an archive is to save data for future parties to observe.