On the Purpose of Archives

A short Introduction by Peter Keller-Marxer

The purpose of archives is to take into custody and then preserve records after their period of creation and active usage has ended. Records are documents in any form (such as paper documents, sound recordings on magnetic tapes, photographs, computer data files etc.) that are made or received and maintained by an organization (e.g. a governmental agency, a church, or a business) while accomplishing its organizational functions and tasks, or by one or more individuals in their process of living. While a library or a museum collects isolated single documents (like a book or a painting) primarily for the sake of preserving the information or cultural value contained in or represented by these single documents, the records kept in archives are to bear witness to or provide evidence of the processes in which the documents were created (e.g. political decisions, business transactions, administrative acts). They may be used, e.g., by researchers to retrace those processes many decades later. Knowledge about the provenance and custody of the records, e.g. information about the question "Who created and maintained these documents when, where, and why?" are therefore much more essential for archival records than for documents collected in a library. To understand the content of the records and reliably assess their evidential value many years after the documents were created can be a complex task and rises important questions about the originality, authenticity, integrity, and trustworthiness of the records kept in the archives. Some of these characteristics of records may have degraded or have been damaged during years of custody in the archives, or records simply may have become incomprehensible due to missing context information or knowledge that has ceased to be common sense. A good introduction on archival theory and practice is, e.g.,

Daniels, M.F. and Walch, T. (Eds.) 1984, A Modern Archives Reader: Basic Readings on Archival Theory and Practice, The National Archives and Records Service, National Archives Trust Fund Board, U.S. General Services Administration, Washington, D.C.

© 2004 by Peter Keller-Marxer