Sharing data and providing access to surveys are paramount to social research. Yet there is little knowledge of the archiving activities involved. This article focuses on quantitative survey data. It reviews the development of social science survey data archives from their creation in the 1950s and the emergence of international standards. France was a late starter in this domain. It then demonstrates the importance of archives for providing access to survey data via the example of the Surveys Department of the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), a co-founder of the Réseau Quetelet, which today centralizes access to most social science surveys in France. The work done to make survey data and metadata available for re-use is discussed, highlighting the importance of collaboration with data producers in a context of a strengthening trend towards open data.