Archivists

An archivist (AR-kiv-ist) is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consist of a variety of forms, including letters, diaries, logs, various other writings, official documents, sound and/or picture recordings, etc.

As Richard Pearce-Moses wrote:

Determining what records have enduring value can be challenging. Archivists must also select records valuable enough to justify the costs of storage and preservation, plus the labor-intensive expenses of arrangement, description, and reference service. The theory and scholarly work underpinning archives practices is called archival science.

Although both are concerned with managing information, the occupation of archivist is quite distinct from that of librarian. The two occupations have separate courses of training, adhere to separate and distinct principles, and are represented by separate professional organizations. In broad terms, the librarian tends to deal with published media (of which the metadata, such as author, title, and date of publication may be readily apparent and can be presented in standardized form), whereas the archivist deals with unpublished media (which has different challenges such as the metadata not always being immediately apparent, containing complications and variety, and more likely to depend on provenance). In addition, because archival records are frequently unique, some archivists may be as much concerned with the preservation and custody of the information carrier (i.e. the physical document) as with its informational content. In this regard, some would argue the archivist may have more in common with the museum curator than with the librarian. The occupation of archivist is also frequently distinguished from that of records manager, although in this case the distinction is less absolute: the archivist is predominantly concerned with records deemed worthy of permanent preservation, whereas the records manager is more concerned with records of current administrative importance.

Archivists' duties include acquiring and appraising new collections, arranging and describing records, providing reference service, and preserving materials. In arranging records, archivists apply two important principles: provenance and original order. Provenance refers to the origin of records, essentially who created them. Many entities create records, including government, businesses, universities, and personal collections of individuals. Original order is applied by keeping records in their order as established and maintained by the creator(s). Both provenance and original order are closely related to the concept of respect des fonds, which states that records from one corporate body should not be mixed with records from another. There are two aspects to arrangement: intellectual and physical. Both aspects follow the principle of original order. Archivists process the records physically by placing them in folders and boxes, usually acid free to ensure their long-term survival. They also process the records intellectually, by determining what the records consist of, how they are organized, and what, if any, finding aids need to be created. Finding aids can be box lists or descriptive inventories, or indexes. If the original arrangement is unclear or even unhelpful in terms of accessing the collection, it is not usually rearranged to something that makes more sense. This is because preserving the original order answers the most questions about the collection. It shows how the creator of the records functioned, why the records were created, and how he went about arranging them. If the archivist rearranged them, the records would lose the ability to answer these questions. It would also lose all significance, as the provenance and authenticity of the records may be lost. However, original order is not always the best way to maintain some collections and archivists must use their own experience and current best practices to determine the correct way to keep collections of mixed media or those lacking a clear original arrangement.

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