An archiving system for enabling searching for collections of items is disclosed. A processing unit displays an archived items collection management template in respect of a particular collection of items and prompts a user to complete the template fields with data obtained by the user from manually reviewing that collection of items to capture information relevant to each of the template fields. An archiving controller stores, in pre-determined data fields of a storage area of a data store corresponding to said collection of items, the data from the completed template fields. A document search controller may search the pre-determined data fields of the storage areas of the data store corresponding to each of the collections of items to identify ones of the collection of items which match search criteria.