things, phenomena.' But also the physical con
dition is important as far as form and form and
arrangement in which the information is presented,
is concerned.
3 Importance of the information and other aspects
like intrinsic value.
This third criterium is the place for advice from
outside, for historical or other specialists' needs, for
evaluation of facts in view of future needs. Here
events and facts can be evaluated according to
documentation needs.
But before the estimation of the informational
value can be made, evidential value has to be
checked.
Evidential values Evidence is under
stood as the answer to questions like 'Which
records series are essential to show how each
substantive function was performed at each
organizational level in both the central and the field
offices? What are the successive transactions in its
execution?' And 'Which records should be
preserved in exemplary form to show the work
processes at the lower organizational levels?'26 This
means that evidence is something that is shown,
that must be read between the lines and is not
necessarily to be found in the texts themselves.
Evidence means visual evidence of patterns of
processes, aims and mandates, procedures and
results. It involves signs and signals and not
primarily words. It may be symbols like crosses or
lines, showing that someone assuming respon
sibility for a certain task has really seen the paper,
has read it and is aware of the decisions behind it.
Or it may be the location of a certain text in the left
corner on the top of a sheet of paper, giving it the
function of an address. It may even be the following
order of papers in a file, indicating a sort of working
order. These are all non-verbal signs, which can
only be understood in their context. Once
deciphered, they may show how processes worked
and who was responsible for which decision.
The current misunderstanding of Schellenberg's
differentiation between evidential and informa
tional values suggests that in records evidence is
found about procedures and guidelines.27 That is
not what he means, but the misunderstanding can
be cleared up by quoting from his own writings.
For instance: 'Records containingsnc\\ facts Are.
indispensable for government itself and for
students of government'. These formulations tell us
to look for words and texts which contain the
evidence we are searching. We will therefore
naturally turn to the records of the higher levels,
where decisions about procedures and policies are
formulated. We will look for texts in which
processes are described and we will not find the
processes themselves. Surely these are informational
values too. Surely these processes, aims and policies,
decided on in the department or at the higher levels
in the hierarchy, are also phenomena which are
treated administratively?
So there is a certain contradiction in Schellenberg's
ideas and his words, which lead us in the wrong
direction. But his distinction between primary and
secondary values makes clear that evidence is
needed as a basis for a clear understanding of what
happened. It is the basis for the analysis of the
interpretive information as a necessary supplement
to the factual information. The difference between
primary and secondary purposes is one of the aims
of archival work, that is to make archives
understandable and interpretable. Archives
appraised and described along these lines will
reflect the community of primary purposes - not
only as the relationships of concerns - on the basis
of common functional origin. The theory of the
distinction between primary and secondary values
of records, defining secondary values as the
evidence of the primary purposes, can therefore be
regarded as the application of the free principle of
provenance for appraisal.
Today's trends: documentation
of society on the basis of
the principle of provenance
While in Germany the theoretical debate stopped
in the 1970s, in spite of the further development of
archiving models as administrative guidelines, we
can see a professional debate on the two different
positions continuing overseas.
[36]
There are some publications on the subject of
contemporary appraisal theory expressing broad
currents within our profession, also in Germany.
But they are best formulated and described in
publications from the USA and Canada. They are
also closely related to German ideas which are less
rigid than those formulated in the article of Hans
Booms. Among those newer trends are the concepts
of documentation strategy and acquisition strategy.
The undisputed premise of these two concepts is
the commonly approved assumption that the aim
of archival work has to be the representation of an
image of society as true as possible. In order to
achieve this it is deemed necessary to analyze what
has to be documented, before proceeding to look
for appropriate documentation.
In both concepts the realization of this ambition is
attempted in different ways, and as opposed to for
instance Hans Booms the usefulness of the
principle of provenance is not denied. It is accepted
in some degree for purposes of research and
arrangement, but not for the final decisions of
appraisal. It is interesting to see to what extent they
are in agreement with formal approaches and where
content-orientation prevails.
As for the documentation strategy, archives have to
document certain social functions or phenomena
important for the image of society. If the documen
tation which is sought cannot be found, it must be
produced by the archivist himself. Information in
other sources, like reports and scientific journals,
forms the basis on which archival material is
selected to complement the published documen
tation.
In contrast, the acquisition strategy concentrates on
administrative functions, suggesting that social life
is sufficiently mirrored in public records for a true
image of society to emerge. With the concept of
archival hermeneutics the Canadian theory attempts
to formulate less subjective criteria for appraisal,
focusing on the functional-processive activity of the
environment of records creation.
In his often quoted article 'Mind over Matter:
Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal' Terry
Cook gives a theoretical foundation for the
Canadian Acquisition Strategy, with his concept of
the primacy of process, which he opposes - a
movement running parallel with contemporary
physics - to the atomic approach of the past.28
The immanent danger of strategies which define
values by content is - according to Cook - to
decontextualize the record from the internal,
organic relationship of its creation and to impose
instead an external standard for judging values. But
the acquisition strategy gives no guidelines for
appraisal either. As a result archival appraisal is
substituted by evaluation and ranking records
creators according to their impact on changes in
society. This suggests that their respective records
reflect the historical importance and the
importance for society of their activities.
Helen Samuels harmonizes the premises of her
concept of the Documentation Strategy with the
principle of provenance in the following way:
'Fundamental to this activity, then, is the
understanding of the principle of provenance that
relies on a knowledge of the office which created
the records as a means to locate, arrange and
describe them... Functional analyses provide the
understanding of why specific documentation is
sought. Archival principles determine how those
records are located, arranged and described.'
The principle of provenance may serve as a
methodological means for the arrangement and
description of records and it gives the guidelines for
locating the appropriate sources when it is used as
research principle. It is, however, not accepted as a
basis for appraisal. Just like other sources, records
are considered as carriers of factual information. As
there is no distinction between primary and
secondary purposes, the explanatory capacity of
evidence as interpretative supplement to the
informational content of records disappears, and
records seem to be created like books for the
information of posterity. It seems possible to
harmonize the traditional meaning of the principle
of provenance with a content-oriented approach.
There are no cogent consequences for the methods
of appraisal.
[37]
