Putting the Parts of the Whole Together: Systematic Arrangement of Archives

  • Terry Eastwood

Résumé

This article aims to characterize the principled rules that can be used to develop a standard approach to arrangement of archives. It proposes a number of rules for identification of the various aggregations of records that form the externaland internal structure of a fonds. It also examines the differences between the approaches to arrangement of systems based on the concept of the fonds and on series control. It concludes that, contrary to a commonly held opinion, it is not our understanding of the terms of arrangement that impedes intellectual control of archives, but rather the difficulties in developing systems capable of communicating informationabout the complex of aggregations forming an archives and their relationships.

RÉSUMÉ

L’objectif de cet article est de déterminer les principes qui peuvent êtreutilisés afin de développer une approche standardisée pour servir au classement des documents d’archives. L’auteur y propose un certain nombre de règles pour identifierles différents regroupements de documents dont découlent les structures externe etinterne d’un fonds. Il examine également les différences entre les approches declassement basées sur le concept du fonds ou sur celui de la série. La conclusion de l’article est que, contrairement à l’idée couramment acceptée, ce n’est pas notre mauvaise compréhension de l’arrangement des documents qui entrave leur contrôle intellectuel, mais plutôt la difficulté de développer des systèmes capables de communiquer l’information au sujet de la complexité des regroupements de documents d’archives et de leurs relations entre eux.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Terry Eastwood
Terry Eastwood is Associate Professor in the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. He has long had an interest in arrangement and description of archives. He was the cochair of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards and co-editor of its report, Towards Descriptive Standards, published in 1985. He was a member of the Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards of the Bureau of Canadian Archivists that produced The Rules for Archival Description. He edited and wrote the general introduction to The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice, published by the Planning Committee in 1992.
Archivaria 50 front cover
Publié-e
2000-11-01
Comment citer
Eastwood, Terry. 2000. « Putting the Parts of the Whole Together: Systematic Arrangement of Archives ». Archivaria 50 (novembre), 93-116. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12767.
Numéro
Archivaria 50 (Fall 2000)
Rubrique
Counterpoint

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