The article considers the history of the UrFU’s archive as of its establishment to the present day. The account is made with reference to articles and reports of the heads of the Department and archival student internship. Additionally, the author seeks to outline the present problems of the archive caused by the need to represent archival data in new formats. The author studies possibilities for students to have archival internship, and learn to make an inventory of the materials, form databases, and describes the first results of the reorganization process of archival data as a stage in philologists’ professional development and archival data publication possibilities.