User:Deibertj/sandbox

Student assigned article: Original Order

Original order

History of Original Order

The idea that Archivists should arrange their records according to the order in which they were originally organized comes from Prussian archivists in the late nineteenth century. While trying to manage the arrangement of records within the Prussian State Archives, the archivists came up with Registraturprinzip, which formed the basis for what we know as original order.

Principle

Critique

Tom Nesmith also argue that original order "retains little meaning in postmodern archives where origins are never final, but the subjects of new histories waiting to be done. When records arrive at an archives, they will have an order of some kind, but it will not likely be the actual original order of the records, as documents can be easily and repeatedly moved around prior to archiving them. " In today's modern age, technology ensures that fonds and collections are continuously growing, which makes knowing the original order difficult.

Added Sources:

Maria Guercio, "Principles, Methods, and Instruments for the Creation, Preservation, and Use of Archival Records in the Digital Environment."

"The principal role of the record is, in fact, that of rendering the act or fact, which is the subject of the record in its original administrative context, accessible and knowable across time and space." (p. 244) (move to the principles section of the article)

" This principle, along with adhering to the principle of provenance and collective control, exists to preserve the original context of the records. Some records are meaningless outside their original context and others gain additional value by being examined within it" (http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-2/archives-in-context-and-as-context-by-kate-theimer/