The Society was governed by a Council (partially elected every two years), along with a number of committees and sub-committees relating to specific areas of business.
In terms of professional training for archives and records management, the Society accredited externally provided postgraduate diploma/degree programmes.
For some twenty years the Society itself ran a distance-learning Diploma in Archives Administration, but this was discontinued in 2001.
A register was first established in 1987, initially with a clause allowing professional members to be accepted automatically if they had been working in a recognised post for at least two years.
This clause was closed in 1996, and full completion of the scheme made the only way to become a Registered Member of the Society of Archivists (RMSA).