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An
explanation of archival operations and theory
from the
University of Illinois at
Champaign-Urbana:
Archival
theory and practice call for the exercise of professional
expertise and responsibility to accomplish seven goals:
- Institutions, organizations, and individuals
establish, administer, and evaluate archives to ensure the
retention, preservation, and utilization of archival
holdings.
- Archivists authenticate documentary information
through the analysis of its content and evidence obtained
during the process of its accession.
- Archivists appraise or evaluate documents on the
basis of anticipated use in relation to the costs of
description and retention.
- Archivists arrange information according to source
and original order to sustain the integrity the documents
had while in active use.
- Archivists describe documents in finding aids,
guides, and inventories to facilitate long-term access to
their informational contents and ongoing administrative
control of the holdings.
- Archivists ensure the future availability of
documents in a safe environment and on physical media that
will remain accessible, renewable, or convertible for the
period of expected use.
- Archivists promote and facilitate the use of
documents to explain the past, provide guidance in the
present, and accountability to the future.
Some
commom terms used in and about archives:
ARCHIVES
are the organized
noncurrent records of an institution or organization retained
for their continuing value in providing a) evidence of the
existence, functions, and operations of the institution or
organization that generated them, or b) other information on
activities or persons affected by the organization.
DOCUMENTS
are instruments for the
communication of information, regardless of their physical
form or characteristics. They may be in the form of an
impression on paper, a magnetic impulse, or a beam of light.
MANUSCRIPTS
are documents (in any
format) accumulated, collected, and/or generated by a private
individual(s) and subsequently donated to or acquired by a
repository to ensure their retention and public accessibility.
"Manuscripts" include personal papers with organic unity,
artificial subject collections of documents acquired from
diverse sources, and individual documents acquired and
retained by a repository for their potential research use.
Manuscripts may be differentiated from archives in that they
are informal records, privately acquired and maintained for
their subject matter content. Manuscript collections are often
described as "personal" or "private" papers. The term
"manuscript collection" may also refer to records brought
together for a specific purpose by a repository or a
collector.
RECORDS
are all documents,
regardless of form, produced or received by any agency,
officer, or employee of an institution or organization in the
conduct of its business. Documents include all forms of
recorded information, such as: correspondence, computer data,
files, financial statements, manuscripts, moving images,
publications, photographs, sound recordings, drawings, or
other material bearing upon the activities and functions of
the institution or organization, its officers, and employees.
A document becomes a record when it is placed in an organized
filing system for use as evidence or information. It becomes
archival when transferred to a repository for preservation and
research use.
ACCESSIONING
is the process by which archivists take physical and/or legal custody of records that have been donated to them by individuals, offices, or organizations.
APPRAISAL
is the process of examining sets of records to determine if they have value that warrants their permanent retention by the Archives. Typically, when appraising records, the archivist will consider two different "values" of records:
Primary Value: The importance of the records for the person, office, or organization that created them, such as day-to-day administration, documenting legal obligations, or establish fiscal responsibility. These values often disappear after the records have achieved the purpose for which they were created.
Secondary Value: The purposes for which records can be put to use by those other than the person or organization that created them, once they have achieved their purpose.
- Evidential Value: Although inactive records have lost their primary value, they still contain evidence of how the person, office, or organization was organized, how it functioned, and how policies and decisions were made. Hence, inactive records have evidential value.
- Informational Value: The value of the information contained in the record which documents persons, places, or things. This information is often useful to historians, genealogists, etc.
ARRANGEMENT
is the body of
principles and practices which archivists follow to group
records in such a way as to reflect the manner in which they
were held and used by the office or person creating the
records.
RECORD SERIES
A systematic
gathering of documents that have a common arrangement and
common relationship to the functions of the office that
created them. Typical record series include subject files,
project files, chronological correspondence files, client
files, applicant files, financial records files, voucher
files, and minutes and agenda files.
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