I wanted the ability to serialize to binary archives (over a socket) and xml archives (file) without writing code for the two cases (nvp w/xml and no-nvp with non-xml). I whipped up a quick make_nvp wrapper that simply forwards on the value if not serializing to a xml archive. Others might find this useful, not sure if its good behavior to have right in the library. It does require adding the Archive type as a tempalte param to the make_nvp call. template <typename Archive, typename T> struct make_nvp_impl { typedef T& result_type; static T& do_make_nvp(const char *tag, T & value) { return value; } }; template <typename Archive, typename T> struct make_nvp_impl<boost::archive::basic_xml_iarchive<Archive>, T> { typedef boost::serialization::nvp<T> result_type; static boost::serialization::nvp<T> do_make_nvp(const char *tag, T & value) { return boost::serialization::make_nvp(tag,value); } }; template <typename Archive, typename T> struct make_nvp_impl<boost::archive::basic_xml_oarchive<Archive>, T> { typedef boost::serialization::nvp<T> result_type; static boost::serialization::nvp<T> do_make_nvp(const char *tag, T & value) { return boost::serialization::make_nvp(tag,value); } }; template <typename Archive, typename T> typename make_nvp_impl<Archive, T>::result_type make_nvp(const char* tag, T& value) { return make_nvp_impl<Archive,T>::do_make_nvp(tag,value); } So now: struct point { int x, y; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive &ar, const unsigned int /*version*/) { ar & make_nvp<Archive>("x",x); ar & make_nvp<Archive>("y",y); } }; will serialize properly for xml archives and non-xml archives. Chris