The cultural, social, economic, politic … values of archives are directly dependant of three main qualities: the intrinsic interest of their substance; their ability to be easily exploited (retrievable, reachable and usable in a user-friendly way); their persistence (reliable, affordable and manageable). The first quality has an unpredictable value, while the two last have a technology dependant value.

The contribution introduces possibilities to enhance that intrinsic interest through restructuring and by adding metadata; to select the appropriate technologies. The result is the exploitation of the archives by a large span of users and user’s communities.