I am trying to figure out what is the exact difference between a document management system and archives management system? For example, what is the difference between Alfresco and Archivesspace (http://www.archivesspace.org/)?
Can Alfresco function as an archives management tool? What is the difference between the two? I read there is a record management module in Alfresco, is this what is meant by archives management?
Can Alfresco be used as an Archives Management System? Yes, of course. One real world example of this is the New York Philharmonic. They digitized their musical scores and associated artifacts going back to 1842 and then made them available online for researchers. Here is a video about it.
At its heart, Alfresco is a repository that allows you to capture any type of file, secure those files, route those files through workflows, search across the files, and associate metadata with each file. What I've just described are what most people would consider the basic set of functionality present in any worthwhile document management system.
Now, what makes that specific to archival purposes? I'm not an archivist. That's a highly-specialized field. One thing that is missing from my list of functionality above is "capture" or how the artifacts you are archiving will get into the system. This depends on exactly what it is you are archiving. One might use document scanners or high-end photography equipment, for example. None of that is addressed by Alfresco. You'll have to use third-party hardware and software and then integrate it, although many integrations exist between Alfresco and third-party capture vendors.
So I would say, yes, Alfresco can be used for archives management. But perhaps more importantly than considering whether or not a piece of software can be given a label, you should be thinking about how your users will use the software and what it is they need to get done. Then focus on how each of the packages you are evaluating can be used to achieve those goals to try to figure out whether or not each package will be a fit.
The difference is that ArchivesSpace is an 'archives information management system', whereas Alfresco is a full 'content management system', which means that it can manage any type of content.
What ArchivesSpace is:
ArchivesSpace Version 1.0 was completed in August 2013. It includes basic functionality for accessioning, processing, description, digital object description, and authority control workflows for archival material, as well as for searching descriptions and exporting metadata objects such as EAD, MARCXML, MODS, Dublin Core, METS, and CSV.
http://www.archivesspace.org/developmentplan
As for Alfresco:
The Alfresco One platform allows organizations to fully manage any type of content from simple office documents to scanned images, photographs, engineering drawings and even large video files.
What the difference ultimately comes down to is not what it can store but what functionality you get in addition. ArchivesSpace seems to be a simple implementation of a document storage system that stores documents in collections with associated metadata. Alfresco also offers workflows, custom actions, previews, sites, wikis etc.
If your specific use case is related to archiving off documents specifically and you want something that will already be good at this then go ahead and use ArchivesSpace, if not, or if you want to expand the system out in future, then Alfresco will likely be able to do more but will likely take more effort to configure to your specific use case as you will have to create a custom content model and such.
Alfresco Records Management is for managing documents that will likely have some legal significance, such as court papers, official government department responses etc, and as such their creation and destruction need to be closely managed. As far as I can see this is not something ArchivesSpace can do.
(Full disclosure: I work for an Alfresco partner)
