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Fonds
In archival science, a fonds is a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization. An example of a fonds could be the writings of a poet that were never published or the records of an institution during a specific period. Fonds are a part of a hierarchical level of description system in an archive that begins with fonds at the top, and the subsequent levels become more descriptive and narrower as one goes down the hierarchy. The level of description goes from fonds to series to file and then an item level. However, between the fonds and series level there is sometimes a sub-fonds or sous-fonds level and between the series to file level there is sometimes a sub-series level that helps narrow down the hierarchy. Historical origins In the archival science field, it is widely agreed upon that the term ''fonds'' originated in French archival practice shortly after the Frenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Respect Des Fonds
''Respect des fonds'', or ''le respect pour les fonds'', is a principle in archival theory that proposes to group collections of archival records according to their fonds (according to the entity by which they were created or from which they were received). It is one of several principles stemming from provenance that have guided archival arrangement and description from the late 19th century until the present day. It is similar to archival integrity, which dictates that "a body of records resulting from the same activity must be preserved as a group." It is also closely related to the idea of original order – the idea that archivists ought to maintain records using the creator's organizational system. However, ''respect des fonds'' differs from that other foundational sub-principle of provenance in its concern with the integrity of the collection or record group as a whole rather than the organization of materials within that collection or record group. Origins Most archivist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archival Science
Archival science, or archival studies, is the study and theory of building and curating archives, which are collections of documents, recordings and data storage devices. To build and curate an archive, one must acquire and evaluate recorded materials, and be able to access them later. To this end, archival science seeks to improve methods for appraising, storing, preserving, and cataloging recorded materials. An archival record preserves data that is not intended to change. In order to be of value to society, archives must be trustworthy. Therefore, an archivist has a responsibility to authenticate archival materials, such as historical documents, and to ensure their reliability, integrity, and usability. Archival records must be what they claim to be; accurately represent the activity they were created for; present a coherent picture through an array of content; and be in usable condition in an accessible location. An archive curator is called an '' archivist''; the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuscript Processing
Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person engaging in this activity is known as an ''archival processor, archival technician,'' or archivist. Ideally, when an archives receives a collection of papers or a group of records, they will have been arranged by the originator (the original person, persons, or organization that created or assembled the collection or records) and boxed up for the move to the archives in such a way that this order has been preserved. However, collections and record groups are often semi-organized, and sometimes lack any discernible organization. Observing the organization of delivered materials, imposing organization where it is lacking, then describing the organized material are tasks covered by the terms "archival processing", "arrangement and description", "a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Order
Original order is a concept in archival theory that a group of records should be maintained in the same order as they were placed by the record's creator. Along with provenance, original order is a core tenet of the archival concept of ''respect des fonds.'' A primary goal of keeping records in their original order is to preserve additional contextual information about the records' creator and the environment of their creation. Original order also encourages the archivist to remain neutral as opposed to applying any interpretation to the records. Principle The Society of American Archivists ''Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology'' calls original order a "fundamental principle of archives" and posits two primary purposes: preserving "relationships and evidential significance" of records and facilitating use of the records by maintaining "the record creator's mechanisms to access". The SAA definition qualifies that original order is not necessarily the order of the records ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archivist
An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consist of a variety of forms, including letters, diaries, logs, other personal documents, government documents, sound and/or picture recordings, digital files, or other physical objects. Description As Richard Pearce-Moses wrote: Determining what records have enduring value can be challenging. Archivists must also select records valuable enough to justify the costs of storage and preservation, plus the labor-intensive expenses of arrangement, description, and reference service. The theory and scholarly work underpinning archives practices is called archival science. The most common related occupations are librarians, museum curators, and records managers. The occupation of archivist is distinct from that of librarian. The two occupations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provenance
Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, paleontology, archives, manuscripts, printed books, the circular economy, and science and computing. The primary purpose of tracing the provenance of an object or entity is normally to provide contextual and circumstantial evidence for its original production or discovery, by establishing, as far as practicable, its later history, especially the sequences of its formal ownership, custody and places of storage. The practice has a particular value in helping authenticate objects. Comparative techniques, expert opinions and the results of scientific tests may also be used to these ends, but establishing provenance is essentially a matter of documentation. The term dates to the 1780s in Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provenance
Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, paleontology, archives, manuscripts, printed books, the circular economy, and science and computing. The primary purpose of tracing the provenance of an object or entity is normally to provide contextual and circumstantial evidence for its original production or discovery, by establishing, as far as practicable, its later history, especially the sequences of its formal ownership, custody and places of storage. The practice has a particular value in helping authenticate objects. Comparative techniques, expert opinions and the results of scientific tests may also be used to these ends, but establishing provenance is essentially a matter of documentation. The term dates to the 1780s in Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Series System
The Australian Series System is an archival control or metadata system, used primarily to describe records in the custody of archival institutions. It was developed at the Australian Archives and forms the basis for the Australian Society of Archivists' committee on descriptive standards guide ″Describing archives in context″. In 1966, Peter Scott of the Commonwealth Archives Office (predecessor to the National Archives of Australia) developed the system (in practice, referred to as the Commonwealth Records Series System by the National Archives) in his paper "The Record Group Concept: A Case for Abandonment". This approach represented a change in traditional archival theories of provenance that groups records by the more flexible record series rather than the record group which required all records to be filed under only one creating agency (business, government agency, individual, etc.). The new system recognises that creating agencies change names, split and dissolve ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natalis De Wailly
Natalis de Wailly (10 May 1805, Mézières, Ardennes – 4 December 1886, Paris) was a French archivist, librarian and historian. In 1841, as head of the Administrative Section of the Royal Archives, he wrote a ministerial circular, issued by Count Tanneguy Duchâtel, Minister of the Interior, stating that records should be grouped according to the nature of the institution that has accumulated them and formulating the principle of ''respect des fonds'' (up until that point, archives had often been sorted according to subject, date or place). In 1854, he was appointed head of the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque impériale. A member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres since 1841 and of several learned societies (e.g. Société de l'histoire de France, Société des anciens textes français, Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques), he was a renowned paleographer and published scientific editions of medieval chroniclers (e.g. Villehardouin a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finding Aid
A finding aid, in the context of archival science, is an organization tool, a document containing detailed, indexed, and processed metadata and other information about a specific collection of records within an archive. Finding aids often consist of a documentary inventory and description of the materials, their source, and their structure. The finding aid for a fonds is usually compiled by the collection's entity of origin, provenance, or by an archivist during archival processing, and may be considered the archival science equivalent of a library catalog or a museum collection catalog. The finding aid serves the purpose of locating specific information within the collection. The finding aid can also help the archival repository manage their materials and resources. The history of finding aids mirrors the history of information. Ancient Sumerians had their own systems of indexes to locate bureaucratic and administrative records. Finding aids in the 19th and 20th centuries were paper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archives Nationales (France)
The Archives nationales (, "National Archives" in English; abbreviated AN) are the national archives of France. They preserve the archives of the French state, apart from the archives of the Ministry of Armed Forces and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as these two ministries have their own archive services, the Defence Historical Service (SHD) and respectively. The National Archives of France also keep the archives of local secular and religious institutions from the Paris Region seized at the time of the French Revolution (such as local royal courts of Paris, suburban abbeys and monasteries, etc), as well as the archives produced by the notaries of Paris during five centuries, and many private archives donated or placed in the custody of the National Archives by prominent aristocratic families, industrialists, and historical figures. The National Archives have one of the largest and oldest archival collections in the world. As of 2020, they held of physical records (the tot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Records Management
Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the management of information in an organization throughout its life cycle, from the time of creation or receipt to its eventual disposition. This includes identifying, classifying, storing, securing, retrieving, tracking and destroying or permanently preserving records. The ISO 15489-1: 2001 standard ( "ISO 15489-1:2001") defines ''records management'' as " hefield of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records". An organization's records preserve aspects of institutional memory. In determining how long to retain records, their capacity for re-use is important. Many are kept as evidence of activities, transactions, and decisions. Othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
