Archives West is an online catalog of descriptive information about the archival collections at various institutions in the western United States (Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Alaska, Utah and Washington). It was established in 2005, and is a program offering of the Orbis Cascade Alliance. From 2005 to 2015, the site was known as Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA); the name changed as part of a substantial redesign to better describe the site's content and scope.
It was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in two phases between 2002 and 2007,[1] and by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Since 2007, it has been supported by the contributing institutions.
It uses Encoded Archival Description (EAD).