The inventory on the SAM archives was created in 1993 and prepared by M.J. Immeker. The SAM collection was managed by the NDB from 1972. As a result, the performance of tasks with regard to management, availability and research was not separate, which also meant that the creation of the SAM archive and the NDB archive was not separate. Therefore, the archives were described within one inventory at the time.
In 2000, the inventory was split into a SAM inventory and an NDB inventory. One reason was the legal ownership status of the NDB archive and the SAM archive. The NDB archive is owned by the State of the Netherlands. After all, the NDB was a department of the Rijksdienst voor Monumentenzorg (RDMZ). The SAM archive, on the other hand, became the property of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), one of the forerunners of the New Institute, by convention after the SAM was disbanded.
When the inventory was split into a SAM and an NDB inventory, M.J. Immeker's introduction was partially reproduced in both inventories. This applies, for example, to the list of literature consulted, as well as the list of exhibitions present from 1993 (see the Appendices section). This list of exhibitions contains references to inventory numbers in both the NDB and SAM archives.
Only a few corrections of incorrect data took place in the 2000 inventory. The index that was part of the 1993 inventory has been dropped, as the new inventories are searchable by terms and names as a text document.
Subsequent acquisitions to the SAM archive have been incorporated in the Supplements section.