Archivistique

The archivistic is the discipline relating to the principles and the techniques governing creation, the evaluation, the increase (acquisition), the classification, description, the indexing, the diffusion and the safeguarding of the Archives (definition inspired of Seam and Rousseau, 1982, p. 281).

History of the discipline

Although the files, so much documents than like institution, seem at the first centuries of the history, the reflection on their organization and their management is much more recent. Creation, by various European sovereigns, in XIVe and XVe centuries, of the first institutions charged to gather the required documents with the defense of the rights of the State indeed does not seem to have caused normative or theoretical texts on the role of the archivists or the nature of the files. The first reflection on the documents of files thus takes the form, at the XVIIe century, of a research of the means of distinguishing the authentic documents from those which were falsified or manufactured afterwards: it is the Diplomatique, of which one of the bases is the systematic comparison of the acts of the same sovereign or the same authority or dating from the same time for purposes to locate constant and differences. This work however possible only provided that the files are not only preserved, but is not classified and is made available by instruments from research which describe the contents of it. It is from this point of view that are carried out, at the XVIIIe century, the first work which one can regard as concerning the archivistique one: they consist in working out the guiding principles of the classification of the files and the establishment of the instruments of research.

The French revolution having made a principle of accessibility to all the citizens of the files of the public authorities and having consequently generated an imposing network of services of files which it was necessary to equip with rules, it is with Natalis de Wailly that one must, in a circular sent in 1841 by the Minister of Interior Department to the Departmental records, the first conceptualization of the principle of the respect of the funds . This principle, which forces to treat the documents according to their source and not of their subject, is one of the basic concepts of the discipline. The constitution of the funds of files, in addition, and their use to prove rights and to contribute to the administration, then as source of the history is, as from the XIXe century, the great subject of reflection and concern of the archivists.

The constitution of the funds does not go from oneself and it is lacking of much that the documents pass systematically and effective of the offices where they are produced at the institutions of files where they must be preserved. The role of the archivist in the creative process of the documents and its place compared to the people and organizations producing or holding files thus become major topics of the archivistique one. A related question is that of the use of the filed documents. Products and preserved at the origin like evidence, therefore to meet the needs for those which hold them, they can also be used for better knowing the past and writing the history. However these two uses are not inevitably successive, but can be concomitant, at the same time because the documents can keep very a long time their function of evidence (it is the case of the documents of title and the agreements and international treaties, for example) and because the historical research can relate to recent periods and events.

Consequently the archivists must find the means of reconciling the concern of the authorities of seeing protecting certain secrecies with the will from the public which the files are well preserved and easily consultable. All the archivistic matter reflection since the First World War is thus devoted to the development of solutions to these problems. The principal ones are

the theory of the three ages (another concept basic of archivistic), which analyzes the life cycle of the document in three successive phases, the
development of laws and payments obliging the administrations to hold account, during the production of the documents, the vocation of some of them with becoming files (procedures of Registratur in the countries of German culture and Records Management in the Anglo-Saxon world) and subjecting the destruction to the agreement of the archivists,
the definition of the place of the institutions of files in the administration and the company,
the definition of functions of the archivist, which are not only any more to preserve, but also to collect and communicate.

The respect of the funds

This principle implies to respect the material and intellectual integrity of each Fonds of files without trying to separate from/to each other the documents which compose it and without distributing them in artificial categories according to their subject. Classification and instruments of research (Repertory, Inventory, databases, etc) must make it possible to the researcher not to lose sight of the fact the institutional link linking each document with the entity which produced it.

Three ages of the files

Any document passes successively by two or three phases. In the first, it raises of the current files because one refers to it daily: it is preserved by the people having produced it or received. When it is not more than one daily and immediate utility without one being able for destroying it as much, it reaches the stage intermediate files : it can be moved in a room where one will consult it where necessary or entrusted to a service of files which will restore it with the request. Once arrived the moment when its conservation is not necessary any more for the control of the activity or legally obligatory, it can either be destroyed, or to be entrusted like final files to a service of historical files. In France, the final files of the public people, that it is of territorial collectivities or services decentralized of the State, must be versed with the Departmental records geographical spring where they are. The final files of the central administrations of the State and the public corporations with national competence must be versed with the Public records.

See too

External bonds

Guide Archivistique Terminology of the EBSI
Official site of the School of biblio-economics and the information sciences

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