The Madison County Historical Society’s mission is to, “open doors to Madison Countys history.” The way they present their work and mission is in a very sincere and authentic way. In their about, the language used shows how open-minded and courteous these individuals are. Most times, society likes to fabricate history rather than telling the harsh truth. This archive does not only preserve the county of Madison, Illinois but, also, they acknowledge, “our community achievements and triumphs, as well as our tragedies and failures.” The archive was founded “in 1915, the Old Settlers Union made a motion to organize a “historical society for the purpose of collecting relics and valuable information of all kinds pertaining to the history of Madison County” (Madison County Historical Society). Sometimes on the documents in archives, there is no demographic information about the individual(s). This can cause confusion so to understand it we might need demographic information, names, time, place, etc. Another huge component could be knowing how to translate Old English into New English being that a lot of these documents were retrieved during the early 1900’s. The archive serves the Edwardsville community. It can serve neighboring communities nearby, such as Madison County, etc. The people of Illinois have a stake in the archive’s contents because this archive relies on donations, and that is how they function and operate. In the source it also states that museum and library is, “owned and operated by the Madison County Historical Society through the generous donations of members and friends and the help of Society volunteers” (Madison County Historical Society).