Archival Science 1: 373-385, 2001.

373
9 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

A First I n t r o d u c t i o n to Archival Science *

THEO THOMASSEN
University of Amsterdam and The Netherlands Archiefschool, PO Box 1025, 1000 BA
Amsterdam (E-mail: arschool@euronet.nl)

Abstract. This first introduction, written for educational purposes, is meant to be a concise
basic text in which the core concepts of archival science are coherently defined and explained,
in a non-polemical way and departing from a de-institutionalised point of view. It is not
intended to support or reject any single theory, but to provide an overview. It should be read
as a synthesis of a variety of shared ideas and views, not as a manifesto of a new approach to
archival science. If there is anything new to it, it might be located in the coherent and integrated
presentation. In this primer of archival science annotation has been avoided.

Keywords: archival teaching, archival theory

1. Archival science

T h e central c o n c e p t s i n archival s c i e n c e are the c o n c e p t o f the record a n d

the c o n c e p t o f the archive. M o s t p e o p l e k n o w a b o u t records: a l m o s t e v e r y o n e
keeps records at h o m e a n d a l m o s t e v e r y o n e ' s life is d o c u m e n t e d i n records
kept b y a n employer, a h o u s i n g corporation, a p u b l i c n o t a r y a n d a n electricity
c o m p a n y . M a n y p e o p l e have also a basic idea o f w h a t a n archive is: w h e t h e r
it is large or small, private or p u b l i c , b e l o n g i n g to a c o m p a n y or a g o v e r n m e n t
* The first of several versions of this First Introduction was written in August 1995. It
was meant to meet the need of the Netherlands Archiefschool for a basic text on archival
science which could support its different programs for archival education and training. After
ample discussion with the archival science teachers of the Archiefschool, it was introduced
in the 1995/1996 courses. From then on, it has been used in almost all courses and classes
on archival science on the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels and in several
training and retraining programs of the Archiefschool. The design of the first version has been
maintained in all subsequent versions, including this last one. Still, the text has frequently been
adapted as a result of discussions with students and colleagues, in and outside the school.
This first English version can almost be deemed as a collective product. Of the numerous
colleagues who were engaged in this discussion and contributed to the text, special mention
has to be made of Peter Horsman, Hans Scheurkogel, Hans Hofman, Eric Ketelaar, Herman
Coppens and Kent Hayworth, who commented the English version. For the final text and all
imperfections that may still cling to it I am, of course, responsible. An earlier version in Dutch
has been published as: Theo Thomassen, "Een korte introductie in de archivistiek", in: EJ,
Horsman, F.C.J. Ketelaar en T.H.EM. Thomassen (red.), Naar een nieuw paradigma in de
archivistiek ('s-Gravenhage, 1999), pp. 11-20.
374 THEO THOMASSEN

agency, they recognize it as a collection of records accumulated by persons,

corporate bodies and families in order to support their memories.
In everyday life these vague notions are sufficient. In the archival profes-
sion however the terms record and archive must be more strictly defined.
Archivists must know precisely what kind of documents and collections are
involved and in what respect they can be distinguished from other types of
documents and collections. Archivists must have a clear understanding of
what an archive (or a record-keeping system) is, what its functions are, and
its fundamental entities, how these fundamental entities relate to each other,
how the quality of records and archives can be assessed and ensured. Arch-
ivists need this understanding in order to be able to establish record-keeping
systems, to analyse them and to be able to communicate about it.
We regard records as process-bound information, that is: information
generated by coherent work processes and structured and recorded by these
work processes in such a way that it can be retrieved from the context of those
work processes. To provide some insight into this rather abstract working
definition, it is necessary to subject it to further examination.
A record is information that can be retrieved in the form of a document, i.e.
the smallest unit of data that can independently function as information. Not
all information that can be retrieved in documentary form is a record. Records
are distinguished from other documents by the reasons of their creation.
Unlike books in a library, which are the product of a conscious collecting
activity, records have in common the fact that they are linked to the process
that produced them.
Records are process-bound information, that is to say, information that is
generated by and linked to work processes. A work process is the organisa-
tional form in which a task or part of a task is carried out. In companies
we talk of business processes. We distinguish between core or key and
support processes. A core or key process gives form to a core of key task,
a task that is directly aimed at achieving the organisation's objective: the
supply of a commodity or a service to customers. A support process gives
form to a support task, a task that is aimed at supporting the core or key
task. In business, management processes such as personnel management,
financial management, information management and buildings and property
management are all support processes.
Records are linked to coherent work processes. Coherent work processes
are directed at the same objective: the accomplishment of the organisa-
tion's mission. It is the mission of the organisation and the work processes
supporting it that makes the archive of the organisation, the records creator,
into a coherent whole.
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 375

The agents who manage the work processes are called actors. Anyone can
be an actor: organisations (government agencies, associations, companies),
parts of organisations (departments, bodies) but also families and individuals.
The bond of records to work processes and actors is more stable and closer
than the tie to the records creator. Records follow functions: if companies are
split up and if a part of a company is sold or made self-sufficient, then the
records generally follow the split or self-sufficient company: or rather the cut-
off function. The link between information and work process remains intact,
whilst the link between information and the generating organisation is cut.

2. Functions of records

Information is recorded with a view to a supposed re-use at another time and

often in another place. Information generated by work processes, is linked to
those work processes in order to enable retrieval at another time and place
within the context of those same work processes.
Records function as the memory of individuals, of organisations and of
society. Individuals keep records in order to remember, to remind and to be
reminded. An organisation needs a corporate memory to allow the organisa-
tion to keep running, to be able to make itself accountable and to document
its own history. Society as such does not create any records, but encourages
the creation and preservation of them. It is, after all, important to society that
organisations operate well, that individuals and organisations be accountable
for their acts, and that records of enduring cultural value are preserved over
time.
For an organisation, records serve in the first instance to support opera-
tional management. Binding the information to the work processes ensures
the necessary continuity and opportunity for communication in those work
processes. Without records, the actions and transactions that together estab-
lish a work process could not be harmonised with each other nor could
the work processes be harmonised with each other. Without records, policy
making would very soon be of an ad hoc nature. Without records, no satis-
factory answer can be provided to questions such as: what do we have to
produce and how, what means are available for doing this and how can they
be used, what agreements have been made and what commitments have been
taken on and how did these come to be, which commodities and services can
we offer and do these products and services meet the criteria that have been
set.
Records should not only ensure that the work is done and that it is done
efficiently and effectively, but also enable others to check whether the work
has been done and how. Records also serve as agents of accountability and
376 THEO THOMASSEN

evidence. Trustworthy records contain reliable evidence of decisions taken,

rights acquired and commitments made. Without records, no assessment can
be made of whether individuals, private organisations and public organisa-
tions have actually carried out the actions and transactions that they had to
execute, or whether they made these actions and transactions meet the criteria
of efficiency, legitimacy or the principles of good governance, and whether
they have done things which they were not supposed to do. Reliable records
make people and organisations accountable, within their own organisations,
to each other, to suppliers and customers and to society.
Individuals and organisations also create records because they do not want
to be forgotten. Thus diaries, photograph albums and visitors' books are
kept and saved to document one's own history for posterity. This cultural-
historicalfunction is sometimes also attributed to records that are not deliber-
ately created as a reminder of the past. A fairly small portion of those records
that by aging have lost their evidential functions, are preserved because they
are regarded as part of cultural heritage and as a potential source for historical
research.
In this context a distinction is made between the primary and secondary
functions of records. The primary functions of records are the functions that
the actor had in mind when creating them and in particular the evidential
functions. In their primary function records play an active role: they document
and regulate social relations. The secondary function of records is the func-
tion which the actor generally does not have in mind, and which records only
acquire once they have fulfilled their primary functions: the cultural-historical
function or the function of source for historical research.

3. The forms of records in relation to their functions

We can describe the internal structure of the individual record as the rela-
tionships between the elements of which it consists. This internal structure is
also called form. The better the form of the record reflects its functions, the
better it can serve as evidence of the actions documented by the record. We
distinguish the physical form from the intellectual form or internal compos-
ition (the logical relations between the recorded data). The physical form of
the record is the entirety of physical characteristics, such as the format, the
number of pages, the quality of the information carrier, the writing and such
like. Generally speaking, function and physical form are interrelated: events
recorded on paper are of a different kind than events written on parchment
and what has been written in pencil has a different status to what has been
printed.
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 377

The intellectual form of the record is the manner in which the information
recorded has been structured. We distinguish between form of material and
states of transmission. The form of material of the record is the manner in
which it has been redacted and that once again depends on the function.
Records with the same function are often given a similar form of material,
they are in many cases even completed copies of the same form. Someone
wanting to communicate an informal written message will write a letter or
a memo, those wanting to give a written communication evidential force
create a deed, those wishing to comment officially write reports, minutes
or proceedings, and those wishing to become a member of an organization
complete a registration form. The stages of transmission of a record are the
phases of processing that it undergoes in its own development process, thus
between the drafting and the transmission. We can distinguish rough, draft,
minute, fair copy and transmission, which all have different functions in the
same process. Of all these stages of processing only the transmissions are
intended to be sent out. To prove their trustworthiness they are often given
authentication, by the use of seals or signatures.
The logical relationships between the recorded data often determine their
place on the information carrier: a letter consists of, in order, a letterhead, a
date, one or more statements of content and a signature. This is the physical
as well as the intellectual order. Physical and intellectual order can also be
different. With digital documents this is always the case: the computer writes
data to available sectors on a disk, without taking into consideration the func-
tional relationships between the data. If the document involved is read then
it is the computer program that ensures that the data appear on the screen in
logical relationships.

4. The structure of archives in relation to their functions

We call the relationships between the documents, which an archive consists

of, the external structure of the archive. The archive has the function of
documenting work processes. That function is realised optimally if the
logical, functional structure of the archive is an adequate representation of
the structure of those work processes.
Anyone going to carry out a task wants to have information quickly to
hand, in order to carry out that task efficiently and effectively. The employee
who has to supply the commodity or the service needs product information
about a specific product; the official who carries out an inspection task needs
process information about a specific production process; whoever manages
people, money or rights needs the evidence of a concrete agreement; and
whoever carries the final responsibility needs information about the perfor-
378 THEOTHOMASSEN

mance of the tasks of the organisation as a whole. The more the structure of
the archive and the aggregated records is a representation of their functions,
the better and faster the information requested will be retrieved from it.
The structure of an archive has a physical as well as a logical, functional
dimension. The physical structure of the archive is the physical order of its
components. This order can be a representation of its functions. Insurance
papers and mortgage deeds lie in the topmost drawer of the desk, salary slips
are in chronological order in a file and the driving licence is kept in the wallet.
The physical structure can also be defined by logistical requirements. Share
certificates lie in the safe, old school reports in a box in the attic, and data
files are stored on the hard disk of the PC.
The logical structure or arrangement of records in archives (which are
usually grouped into series, then files within series, then documents within
files) is a reflection, or a representation of the logical, functional relationships
between the records of which these archives consist. The logical structure can
be the same as the physical structure: all records that document the same work
process can be kept on the same shelf in the same cupboard. But generally this
is not the case: what is physically separated may logically fit well together
and vice versa. With digital data files the logical structure (for example the
directory structure) is usually not the same as the physical structure (the place
of the data on the carrier).
On its own it is not necessarily problematic that the physical structure
is different from the logical structure. One can represent records according
to their function and their mutual logical relations while referring to the
physical place in which these records can be found, wherever that may be.
Such a representation, which makes the archive accessible and that consists of
recorded information about information, is called a finding aid. Finding aids
are, certainly if they are created in electronic form, much more flexible than
the physical structure of the archive. They can be modified to accommodate
all changes in work processes.

5. The context of creation of records in relation to their functions

In addition to form and structure there is a third concept that constitutes part
of the analytical instruments of archival science: the concept of context. This
concept can also be applied from a logical as well as a physical perspective.
In archival science, context of creation is often used in the logical sense:
the environmental factors that directly decide how records are generated,
structured and retrieved. These environmental factors can be defined in terms
of function and organisation. The functional context is the mission of the
organisation, the tasks that the organisation has taken upon itself in order to
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 379

accomplish that mission and the activities that it develops to perform those
tasks. The organisational or procedural context is the structure of the organ-
isation, the actors and their interactions and the arrangement of the work
processes that determine the manner in which their activities are performed.
The physical or material context consists of the locations where, and the
objects in which, the documents have been stored. This material context
primarily supports physical preservation and adequate consultation. It also
indicates intentionally or unintentionally the value or the significance of the
documents concerned. Title deeds, for example, are kept in a safe, bank state-
ments in a file, a university degree in a nice case, a certificate of competence
framed on the wall and recent love letters in the bedside table drawer.
Records cannot be properly interpreted without taking their context of
creation into account. Data regarding the context of creation should therefore
also be included in the same information system of which the records form a
part. Actually, the same should go for data related to the physical or material
context of the records.

6. Record-keeping functions and record-keeping systems

The differentiation in tasks within an organisation is in itself a reason for

spontaneous creation and structuring of the information. A salary slip there-
fore looks quite different from a tender without any formal rules concerning
their form. Decisions are noted in minute books, whilst documents related to
one transaction finish up in one file.
The more formal and complex an organisation becomes, the more an
uncontrolled flow of information and spontaneous structuring of the records
become a handicap. To permit records to carry out adequately their supporting
functions with respect to the work processes (as a means of communication),
measures are taken to regulate the document flow. Criteria are set to determine
which documents are marked as records and which are not: the incoming
brochures and birthday cards are separated from the letters with orders and
the correspondence with the accountant. Records created by the organisation
itself are given a prescribed form, unambiguously providing evidence of their
function and authenticity. Document flow is regulated in order to ensure that
the documents which are generated by the same work process are linked and
remain linked so that they remain easy to retrieve and use.
That latter point is probably the most difficult challenge. In practice the
same information is used in various work processes, and information that
has been generated once may later be used for an entirely different purpose.
Consequently, each deliberate structuring of the archive, each filing system
is a simplification of the complex reality. Whilst work processes may overlap
380 THEOTHOMASSEN

each other, the criterion usually set for a filing system is that it should be as
unambiguous as possible.
In organisations of any scale the availability and reliability of the records
can only be guaranteed by the appointment of a records manager or by
setting up a registry, which must maintain the record-keeping system, keep
the records in good order and quickly provide all other members of staff
with the information they need in order to do their jobs. As a result, records
management becomes a new work process endorsed by the organisation: the
work process of systematic record-keeping. It is no longer the existing work
processes which directly structure the records: the structure of the archive
itself or the structure of the finding aid that gives access to it is therefore
no longer a direct representation of the operations of the organisation that
are manifested in the work processes, but rather an administrative inter-
pretation thereof. In larger organisations such an interpretation is necessary
to ensure effective information management. Sometimes, however, it leads
to the logical structure of the archive only reflecting, to some extent, the
structure of the work processes that it has to support, with all the damaging
consequences this has on information management. The structure of the infor-
mation can, to a great extent, be defined by general notions about information
structuring which have little or nothing to do with the actual work processes.
Certain applications of general classifications such as UDC can serve as
examples.
Records managers will in general be inclined to have the archival structure
fit as well as possible into the work processes within the organisation. In the
course of administrative history various systems have been developed for the
filing of records. Each of these filing systems is tailored to a certain type
of organisation and fits into a particular tradition of governance. Traditional
autocrats (mediaeval kings for instance) independently carry out adminis-
trative and legislative activities and issue, as evidence thereof, diplomas that
are recorded in special registers. Collegial boards of representative bodies
from the ancien rdgime only take administrative and legislative actions after
negotiations. Since they have to give account for their actions to their super-
iors, they do not only draw up deeds, as evidence of those actions, but they
also document the decision-making process that has preceded these actions
in their resolution books. As soon as government officials are delegated
discretionary powers (in the constitutional civil service state of the nineteenth
century) then their decisions are documented too, which causes the creation
of archives consisting of series of subject files, chronologically arranged.
Modern bureaucracies, democratic or totalitarian, document all matters: they
create large-scale case files archives.
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 381

The choice for a particular filing system is determined by the complexity

and the nature of the work processes, but also by the degree of stability of
those work processes, the size of scale, the level of communication tech-
nology, the knowledge available and the corporate culture. The filing system
and the accompanying general classifications are the product of modern
bureaucracy, but also of the growing complexity of managing efficiently and
effectively large quantities of information and new technical devices like the
Xerox machine.

7. Work processes, information processes and accessibility

Information that is bound to work processes has necessarily also a process-

like character itself.
In the transaction of business, records change in function and therefore
often in form. Stages of transmission pass one into another: by being signed,
a draft letter becomes an authentic document. A record can progress from
one form of material to the next: by adding a disposition, an authority can
convert a request to a decree. Files support consecutive phases of the same
work process (preparation, execution and evaluation for example) and can
also be used in other work processes. Files are added to, tidied up and re-
arranged whilst they are being worked on. Whilst their functions change, their
relationships with other documents and files change as well.
Whole series can change in function and therefore also in structure. In
countries Europe, baptism, marriage and funeral registers, which have been
generated and structured by church-related functions and which were incor-
porated in church archives, have acquired the new function of precedents to
the register of population and have been incorporated in the public records.
Archives are usually less dynamic than the work processes through which
they are generated. The more time passes, the less their physical structure is
an adequate reflection of those work processes. Components of the archive
that retain their original structure, and which are generally the older and less
up-to-date components, can after a while no longer be retrieved on the basis of
the structure of current work processes. If the difference in structure between
non-current and current records becomes a serious problem, then measures
will have to be taken to resolve the problems involved. In this situation, phys-
ical re-arrangement of the archive, undertaken as the first and supposedly
most logical remedy, easily can decontextualise records by detaching them
from the context of their generating workprocesses and link them to other,
more current workprocesses, an operation which inevitably changes their
meaning.
382 THEOTHOMASSEN

Missions, functions, and work processes can and do change in the modem
world, with the result that the arrangement and organisation of records
changes to reflect changes in functions and work processes. As a result, the
formalised logical structure of the filing system must be altered to reflect
these changes. The filing system chosen is then no longer adequate and the
archive loses functionality. When this loss is great enough, parallel informa-
tion structures evolve in order to meet the needs of the organization arise
of a more spontaneous, but also more adequate character (usually within the
boundaries of the physical structure of the desk drawer). Ultimately the filing
system itself is revised.
Finally the work processes, which have generated the records and in which
the records have been used, come to an end. From then onwards the chance
increases rapidly that the archive will end up in disarray, change structure
and lose its character as a representation of the original work processes. Re-
organisation from a point-of-view that lies outside the archive can then easily
degrade the archive to no more than a collection of historical documents.

8. Aims and methodology of archival science

Archival science is distinct from other sciences because of its aims, its object
and its methodology. Its object is process-bound information, which is to
say: both the information itself and the processes that have generated and
structured that information. Its aims are the establishment and maintenance
of archival quality, that is to say: of the optimal visibility and durability of
the records, the generating work processes and their mutual bond. Its meth-
odology is the analysis, recording and maintenance of the links between the
function of the information recorded on the one hand and its form, structure
and provenancial context on the other.
Archival methodology (through the application of principles and proce-
dures articulated and developed from archival theory) provide the basis for
the establishment of functional requirements for record-keeping systems, the
adequate maintenance, use, and retrieval of records, the foundations for a
justified appraisal policy, for a careful and efficient system of physical and
intellectual control over records and for the efficient and effective retrieval
and use of records. It is aimed, in particular, at maintaining the formal
quality of process-bound information, by ensuring its availability, read-
ability, completeness, relevance, representativeness, topicality, authenticity
and reliability.
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 383

9. Archival methodology

Archival methodology provides a set of instruments to establish, maintain and

analyse the formal quality of process-bound information. It is used to bring
about, assess and maintain the bond between the records and the generating
work processes. It is aimed at having records play their roles in working
processes and at analysing these roles.
The quality of process-bound information depends on the quality and the
stability of the bond that links content data and generating processes. Only
when content data can be retrieved and analysed in an adequate form, in an
adequate structure and within the context of its provenance (i.e. only when
content data are linked to the relevant metadata) the information provided
can have the intended quality.
Form, structure and context are sometimes consciously manipulated in
order to change the meaning of the contents, but they also have the ten-
dency without deliberate intervention to become detached from the content
data that they structure and to which they thereby give significance. Reliable
information becomes unreliable information, high quality information degen-
erates to information of poorer quality; archives degenerate to documentary
collections, evidence turns into documentation, documents into loose data.
If one wants to prevent such processes to occur, one has to maintain the
relationship between content data on the one hand and the form, the struc-
ture and the context of the creation of these data on the other, or carefully
document the changes that are made to it.
At the level of the record this means respect for the form. This is the
domain of diplomatics from time immemorial. At the level of the archive this
means respect for the structure (the principle of the original order) and the
context of creation (the principle of provenance). Respecting form, structure
and context of creation means maintaining the relations between the content
data, the relations between the records and the relations between the records
and the generating functions and processes.

10. Application of archival methodology: The bottom-up and the

top-down approach

Form, structure and context of creation are concepts which refer to specific
data which both constitute and maintain the record as a record and provide
the interpretative framework to their contents. Using these concepts, archival
methodology supports both the creation and the interpretation of records.
In applying archival methodology we can choose, as with every system,
between two approaches. We can approach the archive either from the
384 THEOTHOMASSEN

elements of which it consists or from the functions that it fulfils or has

fulfilled. The first approach is the classic one. An archive is considered to be
one physical entity; it is through an analysis of the records and their arrange-
ment in an archive that one attempts to gain an insight into their mutual
relationships and thereby into the entire archive and the work processes that
have generated that archive. This approach can still be used, especially in
the analysis of an archive which has already been created, which is not too
extensive and which consists of classic information carriers.
Current archival methodology often adopts the position that the proven-
ancial (i.e. functional and organisational) context could better be taken as
the starting point for the analysis. Thereby one first analyses the mission,
the functions and tasks and maps out the actors, their mandates and work
processes. On the basis of this model a recordkeeping system is designed or
reconstructed. This functional analytical approach is broader than the classic-
descriptive approach and is also more suitable for the analysis of a dynamic
archive or one that has still to be created and for very extensive and digital
archives, which cannot be analysed record by record.
The classic-descriptive method and the modem functional-analytical
method are just opposite approaches, not antagonisms and the same goes for
the inductive (bottom-up) and the deductive (top-down) method. The top-
down approach does not exclude the bottom-up approach, but presumes it.
Research into work processes and their relationships can lead to predictions
about records that should have been created, but it is the outcome in practice
that has to show whether this prediction is correct. The other way round,
a reconstruction of the physical structure of an archive leads to predictions
about the organisation of the work processes which the archive has gener-
ated, but the validity of these predictions must be tested by analysing those
work processes themselves. Both approaches must be used complementarily:
archivists as all human beings are inclined not to look beyond the end of their
noses; archivists, too, are inclined to see what they have predicted.

11. Archival research

Research on archives is research on relations: relations between data, records

and context elements. When merely formal relations are involved, for
instance when the question must be answered how a system which is domi-
nated by sets of formal rules will behave in given circumstances, this research
can bring about formal conclusions. In other cases, archival science tends to
be an interpretative science, aimed at the interpretation of relations. Records
and archives are not surrogates for the real world but not more (and less) than
representations of what clerks and secretaries had in mind when documenting
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVAL SCIENCE 385

their part of the world more or less according to what they thought their
masters wished to document. And many times, records and archives are not
even such remote representations of reality, but only remnants of representa-
tions, mixed up, fragmented and decontextualised. Archival research, looked
upon from this angle, is not only about how memories be kept, but also and
maybe even more about how memory is created and how memory works.