Respect des fonds
Respect des fonds, or le respect pour les fonds, is a principle in
Origins
Most archivists believe respect des fonds originated from the circular titled "Instructions pour la mise en ordre et le classement des archives departementales" (commonly known as "Circular No. 14") issued by the French Ministry of the Interior on 24 April 1841 and authored by
Interpretation
While respect des fonds is generally considered a core concept of the archival enterprise, some critics have noted both the historical contingency of its creation and also the impracticality of its execution.[10][11] Critics claim that respect des fonds arose from the need to find a simplistic method for novice archivists to manage a growing volume of archival materials.[3] Created for government papers and then widely applied to all kinds of archival materials, the principle does not always transfer well to other settings, especially personal papers.[12] Even when applied only to government records problems surface; fonds do not always reflect the nature and use of the documents they contain, especially if the documents were used by multiple agencies.[13] Although both stem from a desire to best reflect provenance, there is a natural tension between fonds and original order, since records managers might destroy fonds in order to create a usable management system.[14] Archival procedures have been subject to critique from post-structural and post-colonial thinkers, who observe the ways in which power dictates methods of arranging and describing materials.[15][16] Despite such criticisms, the recent revolution in archival workflow motivated by Greene and Meissner's "More Product, Less Process" seeks to maintain the fonds, and amplifies it by de-prioritizing detailed processing.[17] More recent work has searched for alternate models and methods, but these remain largely conceptual.[18]
Between the 1930s and 1950s, the principles of respect des fonds and archival integrity were repeatedly debated in the context of the work of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association (a rescue service for archival material), in regard to the ethical implications of splitting related groups of documents between different archive repositories.[19]
See also
References
- ^ a b "provenance". Dictionary of Archives Terminology. Society of American Archivists. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
- ^ "archival integrity". Dictionary of Archives Terminology. Society of American Archivists. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
- ^ a b c Duchein, Michel (Summer 1983). "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des Fonds in Archival Science". Archivaria. 16: 64–82.
- OCLC 24068905.
- ^ Duranti, Luciana (Spring 1993). "Origin and Development of the Concept of Archival Description". Archivaria. 35: 50.
- OCLC 43564387.
- ^ "Record Group Concept". National Archives. 15 August 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ^ Internet Archive. "International Congress of Archivists and Librarians: Brussels, 1910". Retrieved 1 January 2016.
- ^ Jenkinson, Hilary (1937). A Manual of Archive Administration (2nd ed.). London: P. Lund, Humphries & Co. p. 101.
- OCLC 26858673.
- .
- ^ Barrett, Creighton (Fall 2013). "Respect Which Fonds? Personal Archives and Family Businesses in Nova Scotia". Archivaria. 78: 75–92.
- .
- .
- ^ Eastwood, Terry (2000). "Putting the Parts of the Whole Together: Systematic Arrangement of Archives". Archivaria. 50: 93–116.
- ISBN 978-0977861798.
- ISSN 0360-9081.
- .
- ^ Baker, Penelope (2018). "Back-bone or burden?: the role of the RPS in the BRA". Archives. 53 (136): 27–44 (32–33).