Leading lives essentially shown in place of records (7)

I believe the answer is:

archive

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'place of records' is the definition.
'archive' can be an answer for 'records' (an archive is a collection of records). I'm unsure of the 'place of' bit.

'leading lives essentially' is the wordplay.
'leading' becomes 'arch' (e.g. in arch-enemy).
'essentially' indicates the central letters.
The central letters of 'lives' are 'ive'.
'arch'+'ive'='ARCHIVE'

'shown in' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for archive that I've seen before include "Public records store" , "Historical collection of documents" , "Documents store" , "Repository of historical records" , "Record repository" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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