When most people think of an archives, they envision a meticulously organized collection of historical assets—old photographs, paper records, and physical artifacts from decades past. But in a digital-first world, there’s a hidden challenge that many organizations don’t see until it’s too late: the gaps.
Recent findings from our 2025 Heritage Gap report revealed that of the U.S. adult consumers we surveyed, 75% think companies should post more often on social media about history and heritage.
Gaps are missing moments, untold stories, or entire eras that never made it into the “official” record. These lapses often occur because those corporate heritage records exist only in
Even when a sound digital asset management system exists, those files sometimes have redundant duplicates, include low-quality content, or come with little to no context regarding their significance.
And when those gaps persist, a company’s ability to tell its full story shrinks.
Why These Missing Pieces Matter
These holes in a historical record limit an organization’s creative reach:
- Marketing teams can’t easily reuse visuals for campaigns.
- Internal communicators miss out on powerful cultural touchpoints.
- Product designers lose sight of the company’s evolving aesthetics and customer experience.
When you think of your archives as a foundation for innovation, missing chapters mean fewer building blocks.
How Southwest Airlines Filled the Gap
When History Factory began working with Southwest Airlines in 2019, the airline’s archives was robust in some respects. It was rich in pre-2000 materials, filled with artifacts from Southwest’s early history. But there was a noticeable gap in the years after 2005, when much of the company’s creative work had shifted to digital formats and was being generated outside the archives’ purview.
One of the largest untapped sources was the airline’s in-house creative studio. This team of professional photographers documented operational milestones, cultural events, the evolution of the fleet, and more, capturing the company’s recent history in vivid detail with tens of thousands of images. Yet, because the photos were housed in a separate digital ecosystem, they weren’t accessible through Southwest’s archives.
The “culture company” knew that capturing its employees’ history and internal milestones was essential to preserving its legacy. Southwest’s 50th anniversary was the perfect time to seek outside help for the airline’s historian, who couldn’t keep up with the backlog. A few years later, our team caught up on the physical backlog and turned to digital sources to help close the gaps in their historical record, catching Southwest up to the present day.
Mending the Rifts
First, we conducted a systematic review of all files to remove duplicates and non-archival files, leaving those appropriate for integration into the archives. Then we assigned locations for those files within the existing collection structure, created metadata to describe them, and uploaded all the digital assets into our History Factory AMS™ system.
By merging these digital assets with the rest of the archival collection, Southwest saved these materials from vanishing into the gaps, making them instantly discoverable and usable. The result was a richer, more complete Southwest story that connects past and present, informs brand decisions, and inspires future creative work.
Every organization has its “creative studio,” whether that’s a photography team, a marketing department, or a research group generating valuable digital content. Too often, their work is siloed, undocumented in the corporate archives, and at risk of disappearing. By proactively identifying and closing these gaps, companies open themselves up to new possibilities for storytelling, engagement, and innovation.
Your organization’s next big idea might already be in your archives. The question is: Are you capturing all the pieces you’ll need?
Ready to thoroughly capture your history? Contact us.