[39]
Also for the acquisition strategy provenance is not
understood as guiding principle for appraisal.
Again, it serves as a research principle. Evidence in
records is seen as a source for administrative history.
Archivists are urged to a whole-hearted commit
ment to research into the process of records creation
and, more important, into the operational functions
of records creators. The archivist will determine
where the best documentary evidence of that reality
will most likely be found. For these goals records
should be re-read as sources of evidence. Evidence is
an archivist's tool. The difference between primary
and secondary purposes is seen and evidence is
considered a specific characteristic of records
produced in cooperative decision making processes.
However, in both cases research precedes descrip
tion. In reality research into administrative history
cannot be done without access to well-described,
arranged and shaped archival fonds. Administrative
history cannot guide appraisal, which ought to
pepare the sources for it.
The principle of provenance is accepted. It works as
principle of arrangement, as an organizational and
research principle. The acquisition strategy goes
even further with the analysis that provenance by
implication is rooted in the conceptual act of
creation rather than in the physical artifact of rhe
records eventually created. Function replaces offices
of origin. This is an important step beyond the mere
descriptive meaning of provenance in the direction
of a functional understanding because it accepts
distinct primary purposes.
Both approaches demonstrate that the traditional
meaning of the principle of provenance can very
well be harmonized with a content-oriented
appraisal, i.e. with selection of the important items.
Both, however, want to transfer to the user factual
information about society. They do not try to offer
evidence as a means of access to contexts needed for
research by every future researcher.
By contrast, the Free Principle of Provenance, as
Brenneke called it, does formulate goals of archival
appraisal, stating that the result of arrangement
together with description and appraisal is a fonds
which mirrors the organic growth, the actual
activities of the office which created the records.
This is quite the opposite of the goal to document
an image of society.
Conclusions: a new professional
theory describing the aims
of appraisal: creating evidence
of activities
The aims of appraisal depend on how the aims of
archival work as a whole are perceived. We have
seen several content-oriented approaches to
questions concerning appraisal. The underlying
premise of all is that archives seek to shape an image
of society which is as true as possible. However, the
raw material we have to deal with does not fit these
ambitions.
Records are never 'true'. They always have a
purpose, even if this purpose is not made explicit.
No law can be so strong as to make people do
things that have no meaning for their activities.
They create records because they need them, not
because someone ordered their creation. Nothing
in the human community happens accidentally. No
work is done without benefit. This benefit may be
direct or indirect. It may be the benefit of the
community or the society, it may be legitimated
politically. Accountability is such a social benefit
which is generally accepted in democratic societies.
But the steering and controlling of cooperative
decision making processes is a very direct benefit, it
is the reason for the creation of records, because
with their help all individual efforts can effectively
be directed towards a common goal or purpose.
That is the real reason for the appearance of
historical records, developed out of the preparatory
papers for medieval registers or charters and
becoming more and more important, finally
replacing charters and registers with the growth of
administration and the increased division of labour.
Records are not made for posterity. Records are
created because they are needed by those who create
them, not as a means of collecting information but
as intellectual tools for the steering and controlling
[38]
of cooperative decision making processes.
Therefore records are reliable. The better they have
served the primary purposes of initiating and
controlling cooperative intellectual work, the more
they are authentic and trustworthy in revealing
those processes for secondary purposes, whether
they be evidential or informational. Yet the
evidence is not accessible without special processing
of the records. They have to be handled by
professional specialists, the archivists who are
trained for this purpose. Redundancy must be
disposed of to make the rest eloquent and lucid.
The informational content of records is never
objective. It cannot be so. It is always purposeful.
The role of evidence can therefore be described as
the insight into the primary purposes, as a
necessary supplement to informational values
without which the latter are meaningless, prone to
misinterpretation or simply trivial. That is why
redundance must be weeded out. That is why
evidence is an aim, not a tool for archival appraisal.
Archivists are the only specialists who have the
theoretical and methodological tools to make
evidence accessible and thus to give the explanatory
context to information. Archivists are responsible
for contexts, not just for plain information.
Archivists can be described as the only specialists in
secondary purposes of administrative records, in
juridical, economical or political accountability in
the sense that evidence is laid bare in such a way
that everyone can interpret it in the way he wants
or needs it, and others can follow his argumen
tation or come to a different interpretation of the
sources.
Transparancy or lucidity of decision making proces
ses is one basis of the representative democracies we
live in today. Archives can guarantee the direct
insight into certain politically defined delays, while
their actual publicity and accessibility depends on
the necessary protection of administrations against
direct influences from the outside.
If archival work aims at making evidence accessible,
then content-oriented evaluation can supplement
appraisal. Selection for documentation, however,
can never replace it.
Noten
i Cf. B. Uhl and H. E. Zorn,
'Bewertung von Schriftgut der
Finanzverwaltung. Ein Erfahrungs-
bericht und Diskussionsbeitrag',
Der Arcbivar (lyiT) 421-439,
footnote 88: 'Allgemeine
methodische und grundsatzliche
Fragen der Schriftgutbewertung
wurden bewuEt weitgehend
ausgespart.'; H. Höing, 'Zur
Archivierung von Schriftgut der
Finanzamter in Niedersachsen. Ein
Modell zur Stichprobenbildung in
Archiven', Der Archivar (igiy) 485-
496; K. Bogumil, e.a., 'Bewertungs-
empfehlungen fur die Ubernahme
von Lastenausgleichsakten durch
Kommunalarchive', Der Arcbivar
(1989) 175-188; H. Specker,
'Empfehlungen der Arbeitsgemein-
schaft Kommunalarchivare beim
Stadtetag Baden-Wiirttemberg zur
bewertung von Massenschriftgut in
Kommunalverwaltungen.
Einführung und Textabdruck', Der
Arcbivar 1990) 375-387.
2 Cf. for instance the definition of
appraisal and selection'm Webster's
International Dictionary.
3 Cf. O. Kolsrud, 'The Evolution of
Basic Appraisal Principles - Some
Comparative Observations',
American Archivist 55(1992) 26-37.
4 Cf. E. Müsebeck, 'Der EinfluE des
Welrkriegs auf die archivalische
Methode', Archivalische Zeitschrift
38(1929) 135-150: The acquisitions
of the Reichsarchiv after the First
World War were: 3 50 000 files
(10 km) of the imperial office for
indemnities, 120000 files (3,5km)
'occupied western territories', but
also 7228 files from the Imperial
Ministry of the Interior, 4500 files
form the Ministry of Finance. The
author describes the problems
occurring, if criteria of historical
demand are applied in appraising
these quantities and writes 'The
appraisal of these very con
temporary records causes uneasy
feelings.'
5 Cf. T. Huskam Peterson, 'Archival
Principles and the Records of the
New Technology, American
Archivist47(1984) 383-393
6 Cf. J. Papritz, 'Das Massenproblem
der Archive', Der Archivar 17(1964)
213-220.
7 A. Brenneke, Archivkunde. Ein
Beitragzur Theorie und Geschichte
