inherent qualities. On the other hand selection is
done for a certain purpose. Individual items are
selected to meet certain demands. Value is
attributed to an item from the outside and its
graduation is derived from its usefulness in
connection with particular needs.1
Archivists usually only started to think about
appraisal when they were under heavy pressure to
take over great numbers of records.3 The prospect of
these real or feared quantities made the archivist feel
uncomfortable. This was particularly noticeable in
Germany after the First and after the Second World
War. The first formal appraisal policies for the
Prussian archives were formulated in 1924 and
applied to records of military administrations and of
agencies which had proliferated in rather a chaotic
way. Reflections published in articles in archival
reviews of that time demonstrate quite impressively
how archivists felt inundated by unmanageable
bulks of paper.4 After the Second World War it was
proposed to select agencies according to the
importance of their functions and to take this as the
criterion for the preservation of their records. The
principle of ranking the originating agencies instead
of appraising their records was formulated. It
seemed to be easier to determine the importance of
originating agencies from a historical viewpoint and
to reduce the bulk of paper by disposing of all
papers from less important agencies than to try to
develop consistent new theories which could
indicate how to act in a new situation.
Today electronic office systems provide us with a
clearer view. It is no longer the fear of being
inundated by bulks of paper but the awareness that
there will be nothing left to appraise if we do not
formulate fundamental principles which leads us to
consider a theory to guide everyday decisions. We
have come to realize that it is necessary to under
stand the traditional archives more precisely before
we can appropriately apply their principles to
electronic records.5 Experiences with electronic
records have sharpened our perception. We see
that it is not pure quantity that makes appraisal
urgent. It is not space or cost.6 We have to reduce
redundancy, and then we can make the records of
organizations accessible and suitable for archival and
research purposes. That means that the aim of
archival appraisal, also where traditional materials
are concerned, is not to reduce quantities but to
make archives eloquent and to facilitate research.
These aims are sometimes obscured by the impact of
tradition.
The impact of tradition
Archives have strong roots, roots which influence
archival practice and theory to this very day. Among
them are medieval deposits of charters as receiving
archives, created and supported by those whose
existence depended on rights granted through the
archives: the churches and cities of medieval
Europe. These archives either gained the capability
to attract other materials from the growing
chancelleries through their political weight, or,
when the rights they assured were no longer of
juridical or political influence, they became isolated
treasuries and developed into museums of ancient
parchments. When the medieval charters had the
power to attract letters and writings of importance
from the living registries, they often influenced the
structure of the archives, who developed an
orientation towards the selection of important but
separate documents. However, sometimes the
charters attracted whole series of registries of
specific importance and thus the foundations were
laid for a structure based on provenance. Archival
history shows quite clearly how the influence of the
old deposits of charters caused the tendency towards
the selection of important items which is still
inherent to the archival consciousness today. And
the former juridical aims of archives still have their
influence too, in the secretive and elitist nature of
some of today's archives.
But there is also the opposite tendency, a tendency
also rooted in the oldest archival traditions. It is the
democratic tradition of open archives creating
transparency of political decisions, which was
reborn as the ancien régime declined. The classical
republic of Athens created an archives which was
intended to be a place where every citizen could
look into everything of importance to the whole
community, such as laws, minutes and decisions of
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government, and where private purchases became
legitimate through publication.7 The archives were
kept in the Metroon, the temple of the mother of
the gods, who became the protectress of the state's
archives.8 In contrast to the medieval, secret
depositories the classical archive was open. It
preserved material from the issuing body, from the
creator, which was kept with the purpose of
publication. Selected for preservation were those
items which were useful for the public and for the
understanding of politics. As transparency,
accountability and continuity of politics are
essential prerequisites of democratically organized
states, it became the role of the archives to guarantee
insight into decision making. This intention of
making political decisions public was the mandate
of the first National Archives in France in the first
years of its existence and in Germany's
revolutionary parliament of 1848 a comparable
motion was put forward. In these cases archives
were meant for the public. They had to guarantee
insight into political decision making. They were
seen as instruments of the government for making
policies public and as a necessary component of the
representative exercise of power entrusted to some
citizens by elections.
The Roman Empire did not continue the repub
lican traditions of Greece. Some years after its
inception the French National Archives was given
the mandate to collect ancient treaties and charters
with notified rights for cases of restitution appli
cations. The archives of the Paulskirche were never
created, instead the installation of a German
Reichsarchiv after the First World War was strongly
influenced by historical needs and resulted in a
research institute with an archives as one of its four
departments.
These historical moments demonstrate nonetheless
where the other part of archival consciousness, on
which the public functions of archives are based,
originates. They demonstrate an alternative to the
selection of items according to juridical, political or
historical importance which are kept secret for fear
of losing them. They show the possibility of
archival work, in particular appraisal, aimed at
making policy and administration public and clear
and at securing the right of citizens to control the
elected representatives. Modern state archives in
democratic societies are comparable to the classical
archives which were part of the issuing body and
open to public demand. Their role is to elucidate
decision making processes which affect public life,
and to guarantee rights for the public. That is why
it is so self-evident to us today that the right of
access is granted by law to every citizen.
We see today how both tendencies have an impact
on the discussion about appraisal. Selection of the
important items or the duty to render decision
making processes transparant are the two
corresponding professional attitudes. The first
intends to document the image of society, the
second seeks to create evidence about contexts and
processes without interests or values attributed to
archives from the outside.
First steps towards systematic
approaches
In 1926 Ernst Zipfel described how, after the First
World War, the records of 117 economic war
societies with 30,000 to 400,0000 folders each were
treated when they were brought into the Reichs
archiv at one go. His article is an impressive
account of the first big effort to organize archiving
and to find professional methods for processing
masses of contemporary records. It shows how the
first practical experience in this field came about
and on what basis theoretical reflections could have
been continued if there had been enough time.
Zipfel names five advantages concerning the
treatment of contemporary records as opposed
to older materials. There is the possibility of
speaking with the clerks and managers of the
originating agencies. Explicative literature is
available. The material can be compared to material
originating from state agencies with tasks in the
same field. Finally 'a visit to industrial works can be
very helpful.' So he urges the archivist to analyze
the whole environment of the records and to see
them as part of a goal-oriented work.
Consequently, appraisal cannot be done on a
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