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Archival Science 1: 57-82, 2001. 57 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Access - the reformulation of an archival paradigm ANGELIKA MENNE-HARITZ BismarckstraJ3e 32, 35037Marburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. The focus of archives is shifting from storage to access. This shift changes fundamentally the views of archival thinking and of the difference between past and future. Archivists become specialists who provide means for the use of time, and do not just offer past times themselves. The author argues that the access paradigm reinforces the theoretical chal- lenges as well as the pragmatic implementation of archival methods and ideas. She discusses the consequences for archival theory and for the methodologies of description, appraisal and preservation. Keywords: access, archival science, memory, paradigm shift 1. Introduction The future has rarely been as open as today. That is the result of fundamental changes in the near past. The shock waves caused by the collapse of the socialist block did not yet calm down. The existence of a block of socialist states, governing half of the world definitely is over. It is the past. But that past still influences the present. The future seems to need thorough prepara- tion and planning. Yet prognosis needs diagnosis. Planning for the future and understanding its perspectives needs knowledge about what happened when and why. In this political and social context archives have attracted new attention. Records of suppressive regimes are left over in more or less huge quanti- fies. In Germany the records of the ancient secret service, which had tried to inspect and influence the whole life of the people in the eastern socialist state, are now open and can be inspected in a special institution and a law was passed that allows us to investigate them. The records of the whole adminis- tration of that vanished state were transferred to the state archives and there they are free for consultation without the normally observed closing period of thirty years. Repositories nowadays have to make available huge masses of records. All these papers allows everybody to know what happened. They give access to the past to support present knowledge and so they assure the capability of common remembrance. Another development stressing the importance of archives is the intro- duction of information technology in all areas of social live. Computers

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Archival Science 1: 57-82, 2001. 57 �9 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Access - the re formulat ion o f an archival pa r a d i g m

ANGELIKA MENNE-HARITZ BismarckstraJ3e 32, 35037Marburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. The focus of archives is shifting from storage to access. This shift changes fundamentally the views of archival thinking and of the difference between past and future. Archivists become specialists who provide means for the use of time, and do not just offer past times themselves. The author argues that the access paradigm reinforces the theoretical chal- lenges as well as the pragmatic implementation of archival methods and ideas. She discusses the consequences for archival theory and for the methodologies of description, appraisal and preservation.

Keywords: access, archival science, memory, paradigm shift

1. Introduction

The future has rarely been as open as today. That is the result of fundamental changes in the near past. The shock waves caused by the collapse of the socialist block did not yet calm down. The existence of a block of socialist states, governing half of the world definitely is over. It is the past. But that past still influences the present. The future seems to need thorough prepara- tion and planning. Yet prognosis needs diagnosis. Planning for the future and understanding its perspectives needs knowledge about what happened when and why.

In this political and social context archives have attracted new attention. Records of suppressive regimes are left over in more or less huge quanti- fies. In Germany the records of the ancient secret service, which had tried to inspect and influence the whole life of the people in the eastern socialist state, are now open and can be inspected in a special institution and a law was passed that allows us to investigate them. The records of the whole adminis- tration of that vanished state were transferred to the state archives and there they are free for consultation without the normally observed closing period of thirty years. Repositories nowadays have to make available huge masses of records. All these papers allows everybody to know what happened. They give access to the past to support present knowledge and so they assure the capability of common remembrance.

Another development stressing the importance of archives is the intro- duction of information technology in all areas of social live. Computers

5 8 ANGELIKA MENNE-HARITZ

meanwhile are indispensable means of daily communication and they are no longer only storage devices for data. With the networked interconnec- tions they have generated a third form of communication besides the oral speech and the written messages. This third form has special characteristics. Electronic writings and messages have the volatility of oral communica- tions but at the same time they have the stability of analog writing because they can be distributed to anybody like paper letters and their copies. The communication is even less controllable by the author of a message as it was the case with analogue letters because their distribution is much easier and needs less special logistics. Those are new encouraging and also frightening experiences. These effects of the technical developments create insecurity concerning the capability of remembrance. With the new instability the concern for memory becomes more stressing.

But what is memory? It is a social, not a technical phenomenon. Memory is needed, when activities are about to be undertaken. Than it happens or is done. Memory is not a thing like a book or a recording that could be stored. Both are useful to make memory possible, but they cannot replace it. Memory happens whenever it is needed. It uses all sorts of sources that are available and that can tell its history. They all are investigated for the purposes of memory grounded in a special situation and the attention is not focussed only on what is presented and offered as sources.

Storage is one technique - but only among others - to assure the capability and functioning of memory. Storage of content represented in recordings and data has the disadvantages that it needs planning for the future and anticipa- tion of its needs. But the future is unpredictable as are its needs of knowledge about the past. Reconstruction, which is especially used and elaborated in historical research, can be seen as a supplementary or even largely used tech- nique for building memory especially when explanations of what happened are needed. Reconstruction takes the opposite direction compared to storage. It looks exclusively at the past, while storage only sees the presumed future. This is more secure, because the past is definitely there. It is finished and cannot be altered any more. So reconstruction starts in the present and looks at the past. If memory cannot be stored, than reconstructability becomes an alternative approach. It becomes an important concern of archivists. Potential sources can facilitate later reconstruction if they are prepared to tell their story. Digital recordings cannot assure their own longevity with technical methods of refreshing or migration as well as they cannot incorporate their own trustworthiness (Lynch, 2000). So reconstructability meanwhile also became subject of scientific research on longevity with the help of emulation strategies (Rothenberg, 1999).

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Archives do not store memory. But they offer the possibility to create memory. Their function is that of amnesia prevention. They allow us to construct memory, refine it, correct it or reassure it whenever it is needed. This is reflected by the new developments, that let the focus of archives shift from storage to access and that influence all areas of archival work. The main service that archives offer to the emerging global societies is access to the raw material for memory, and thus they guarantee the capability to construct and shape memory in a way that helps us to understand the present problems and prepare us for the future.

These developments shed light on a new public awareness for archives. They focus attention on the capability to give access to whatever information about the past can be found, even if that past is still very near. This new attention is not without influence on the archives themselves. Public interest in archives needs response from their side. Archives are seen either as secret, dusty and chaotic or as open, transparent and clear. This image cannot be influenced by marketing strategies such as expositions about historical events or with special precious objects. Archives are not needed as historical institu- tions, especially when historical research at the universities is reaching a level of professionalization with which they cannot compete. But they are needed as providers of access to the past so that everybody can investigate it for his own questions. Archive that provide service on a high professional level get the image of useful social institutions that can be trusted.

Access in the following is understood as the key that allows archives to acquire a profile as service oriented competent professionally managed insti- tutions. It changes fundamentally the views of archival thinking and supports the shift from the difference between past and future to the new difference of closed or available which roots the archival profession definitely in the present. Archivists than accept the function as those specialists that provide means for the use of time, and do not just offer past times themselves. As a theoretical paradigm access does not directly concern the service for the users. Yet it places emphasis on the service quality of the repositories. Every archival function can be conceived in a new way that makes it even better organizable and achievable in the daily practical work, if it is subordinated to the aim of making the holdings available. Here starts the reformulation of the archival paradigm, that changes but also reinforces the fundaments and principles of archival professionalism. That is the subject of the following chapters.

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2. A new approach to archival thinking and practice

After intense discussions on appraisal during the 80s and 90s meanwhile more emphasis is put on description of archives. The broad availability of the intemet offers new ways of presenting archival materials to the public. Especially interesting is the technique that offers the possibility of structured presentations using hyperlinks and navigation tools. It is extremely efficient for archives.

The access paradigm changes the place of the difference between past and present inside the archival thinking. Archives that see their main task in preserving the past for the future become invisible in the present, when support for creating an own memory is needed. Archival claims towards administrations to record present events and activities for future use do not achieve what they are meant to. Such recordings anticipate later questions and forget those of today. The focus on access does not abolish the difference between past and future. Instead it is the only way to make it usable. Because with this neutral approach using the difference between open and closed both, past and future, become technical distinctions that help to identify the time dimension as accessible for interpretation and understanding.

Past and future have the meaning of technical concepts if both are seen as distinct from present and as indicating time-zones during which things cannot be altered. Changes can be brought only to present actions. Only at present can things be done. Afterwards they are done. And before they happen they can be anticipated or planned. The distinction between those two times during which things cannot be changed and are therefore different from the present, can be drawn by the fact that past affaires can be identified because they are finished and have got their final shape while future events are not yet known. Past than even defined itself by those things, events, and actions, that cannot be changed any more while future things do not exist yet. The differ- ence between past and future is central for archival theory. This difference is the only means by which time can be captured and reconstructed. Traces fixed in time open insight into their relations. The comparison between the situation before an event and after it happened shows a development and gives indications for the reasons of change. This is a prerequisite for the investigation in archives. The investigation tries to distinguish between inten- tions and their results. If an annotation to a text is made to make someone else write a new version both represent intention and effects and they can be compared to show, how the intention worked. For this aim however, the actions that made the archival records emerge, need to be finished before they can be interpreted. Intention and effects have to have left fixed traces. Only than they can be interpreted and understood. That is the reason and also the theoretical and practical distinction between records management

ACCESS - T H E R E F O R M U L A T I O N OF A N A R C H I V A L P A R A D I G M 6 1

and archives. This distinction opens the records for insight by third parties, who gain all the possibilities of questioning and investigation and protect them at the same time from becoming part of and being involved with the activities, since participation is opposite to understanding and both cannot be done at the same time. Only this distinction enables archivists to act as consultants towards records management instead of doing it themselves.

The difference between openness and closure remains the fact, that even if archives make information accessible, they do not contain or store it - but give access to it. Open archives mean availability of answers. But the answers and all information gained from archives are worked out by the users them- selves. Their investigations, interpretations, and combinations produce the information in form of new knowledge that answers their questions. Archives cannot be read. They have to be understood. Archives provide information potentials, not the information itself. And they enable the investigation. This is the main target of the access paradigm. Those who need information should know where they can find which potential sources and how to investigate them.

2.1. Access as form and attitude

Access is not the actual use of archives. Access as a paradigm is neutral to the very content which might be of interest for a single researcher or a group of users. It is a form and an attitude. As a form it allows everyone who is interested in the archives to get access and to read and interpret the records according to his own needs. The users themselves are responsible for the content, that they find in the records. The contribution of the archivists just consists of making the material available and offering the infrastructure that facilitates the handling of the material. Access as attitude means that archivists accept the competence of the users regarding their own research area. They do not give support to understand the records in the right way but leave it to the researchers how to interpret them. So the access paradigm means autonomous responsibility of the researchers for the contents they find in the records, and a full range of instruments helping them to get to the sources they need and to evaluate their relevance. Here lies the new chal- lenge. It means to design a full range of new instruments and concepts, that provide orientation and help to find the way to the material that can deliver the information needed. Among them can be - besides the traditional finding aids and repository guides in online versions - new forms of introductions to the holdings of an archival institution, online-specimen as examples that show how to understand records, and devices like internet-portals that link distributed archival services together to a whole.

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2.2. Access and the custodial paradigm

The access paradigm enlarges the traditional custodial paradigm that has got some problems to explain its service to the present society. Custody without access is not complete. It has no aim and its purposes are not clear. Finally it is not controllable and it cannot be made accountable by society - at least by the present one.

Custody is a main element of the traditional self description of the archival profession. It means the secure storage and aims at physical objects, that are kept out of risk or danger for their enduring existence. Custody as a concept orientates the work towards the physical objects. Digital storage teaches the lessons, that even if the physical objects are kept in good condition, the recordings might not be understandable any more. So the custody of material is just one among other means to keep the information potential untouched. The debate on post-custodialism in the nineties was the first discussion, that tried to react to the perception of an increasing incongruence between the physical objects and the messages, that they might communicate and to establish a more functional approach.

The concept of access is better prepared to the lacking of congruence between the physical shape and the meaning of the archives. It focuses on the interests in the information potentials and can secure their use even with a different physical form. This approach can ask, how is the best way to open the archives for public use and it can therefore choose flexible strategies of description as well as of preservation. Custody, either in the archival reposi- tory or under archival responsibility in a different place, is just a question of practical organization, but not a question of archival methodology or principles.

2.3. Access and user orientation

The access paradigm has these effects because it places the user in the center of the archival awareness. The use of the archives is the only reason for their existence, access helps the users to work with archives and facilitate their work. It indicates the openness of the holdings and as main services the easy orientation that allow their use.

User orientation can be the basis for a clearly defined framework of criteria for the different areas of archival achievements. It can identify the level of intensity and completeness of descriptive information measured against the need for instruments to give access to the users. Thus the criteria for the definition of the quality of archival work are quite clear. Everything that helps to get to the needed records is useful.

ACCESS - THE REFORMULATION OF AN ARCHIVAL PARADIGM 63

But access does not mean, that the description and presentation of archives are user driven. They cannot try to replace the interpretation by the user because only the researchers really know what is needed for their questions. Access puts emphasis on an enabling approach. It opens information poten- tials in their context of creation, that guaranties them their plausibility. It does not present data or other information as true representations of reality, which would at the same time exclude the presentation of other information and thus use the difference between true and false instead of the one between open and closed.

The concept of access describes a professional strategy that is not dependent on the personal and individual empathy of the archivist for the contents or his understanding of the users questions. It is a strategy that is neutral towards the content but passionate concerning openness and availability of information potentials and thus strictly user oriented.

3. Access and archival methods

This concept of access reformulates the archival paradigm because it has consequences for all archival methods, for description and arrangement as well as for appraisal and preservation. It touches fundamental principles of archival theory because it can give a consistent explication of archival mate- rials and their processing needs. The effects on the methods and theory of description, appraisal and preservation shall be described next.

3.1. Access and description

Access as an overall priority can identify the aims of description and explain why it is done for which purpose and with which effects. From this state- ment methods can be derived which best guaranty the formulated aims. All methods can be focused on one point and therefore they can be tested and examined or changed, if necessary.

Description is a field where a large debate on standards took place since the development of ISAD(G) and it was newly reinforced by the publication of the EAD-DTD. The development of both standards started with the need to exchange descriptive information across institutional or national bound- aries and thus to enhance the cooperation of historical research. ISAD(G) had in mind the union catalogues of libraries and tried to create something similar to bibliographic standards for the integration of archival material into large databases. EAD has another starting point. Long before the wide spread access to the internet it adopted its future method by separating the represen- tation of the descriptive information from its presentation for use. As a first

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step in developing EAD the textual structure of finding aids was analyzed. A standard for the form and structure of finding aids was formulated. Both standards wanted to offer uniform presentations of descriptive information and combined it implicitly with prescriptions for standardized descriptive practices for archives.

There is a problem with both approaches. Standards want to achieve products that look alike by regulating the way how to work. They prescribe the right way. Standards however do not give indications in which situations they work best. Being a standard means the claim for universal validity. So to evaluate their usefulness and the validity for a special situation the purpose for their implementation must be clear. That is why standards run the risk of making people do something wrong but in the right way. It can help with efficiency, but not with effectiveness. Processing standards concern the input, while access as a paradigm is output oriented.

The orientation towards accessibility of the holdings enables the archivists to choose the standard that fits best the problems occurred in a special situ- ation and to adopt it to new, not yet anticipated situations. It can consider different forms of material like official files, collections of loose paper, photographs etc. It can respect different conditions like a newly increased demand for a certain group of records. And it can allow to conceive strategies according to different availability of personal or financial resources. If avail- ability is the aim, than the different standards can be measured and chosen. The standard that best helps to open the holdings and make available their information potential is the best one. This choice needs a thorough under- standing of the situation and of the material beforehand, k involves analysis, which cannot be covered by a processing standard because every new situ- ation is different from the other and needs the capability to ask the right questions. Professional qualification enables archivists to see and understand the differences according to criteria based on archival theory. For analyzing the situations professional skills are needed, because they enable us to formu- late the criteria to ask those questions, that open the way for an output oriented processing.

Having in mind the aim of accessibility the questions that concern the way how to describe the material are less methodological but more technical ones. Before starting the actual work strategic decisions on the level of intensity, the form of presentation and the possibility to use an internal structure for the arrangement have important effect on the results of the work and on the need for resources. The answers to these questions can indicate which standards can be implemented and how they should be used.

ACCESS - T H E R E F O R M U L A T I O N OF A N A R C H I V A L P A R A D I G M 65

3.1.1. Different levels of intensity The first aspect concerns the depth of description. New user needs that follow developments in society may have discovered new areas of investigation and ask for certain collections that did not yet get special attention for archival processing, because they are rather new or because this interest was not anticipated. Than rapid accessibility is wanted and the definition of different levels of progressively increasing intensity of description can help to offer access first on a rather general level and refining the details later on. A strategy to identify the summarized descriptions that can be representative for the whole is needed. Summarizing is possible as a representation of the internal coherence on different levels. It follows the internal structures, unveils the context of creation and indicates the areas where the recordings emerged from cooperate operations. The decisions on different levels of intensity require the knowledge about the fonds. The internal structure has to be known in its main elements. The analyses is not less challenging than a detailed description. Only the actual work load for recording the descriptive entries can be reduced.

This approach integrates arrangement and description. The structures help the researchers to identify and find the sources they need. The arrangement of the fonds is of central importance. It does not only show the place of descriptive unites but presents the contexts and gives information about the potential content. Structured presentation uses the reciprocity of arrangement and unit titles on every level of condensation. It must not be identical with he physical order of the records in the stacks, but derived from the context of the original purposes for their creation and use.

3.1.2. Combined meaning of structure and titles The internal structures of a fonds are the result of the communication networks created and used during the operations for which the records were made. During the description they guide the decision on designing the arrangement. They give the researchers relevant information for the orienta- tion inside the holdings. The arrangement scheme can be used as a first point of entry into the investigations of a fonds. The arrangement contains a lot of information potential, which is not formulated verbally, but which is presented visually to the users. Visual presentation is less precise but conveys much more information than verbal descriptions and that is what the arrangement scheme does.

Arrangement does not only just mean to use a structure like a classifica- tion scheme that groups similar phenomena together. It is more. The headers explain themselves by their place inside the structure. All the headers on the same level implicitly also mean the negation of the others, because they all together represent the whole which is represented by a single item on the

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next higher level. With this method get the headers a supplementary meaning by negative delimitation supplementing the explicit wordings. Thus they are defined more precisely than words could do. It is not a semantic hierarchy of words like in a thesaurus or a controlled vocabulary. This approach to arrange- ment balances context and content. Such an arrangement scheme supports a very rapid proceeding of search, because it advances by inference that can exclude on each level a broad range of irrelevant items.

The internal structure, which emerged from the creation of the records for internal coordination and cooperation during their active time, is reflected by the arrangement scheme. It is different from the levels of composition of physical units like series, folders and items, which is the basis of the descriptive levels of ISAD(G). The levels of arrangement reflect levels of differentiation among the complexes of competencies or operational func- tions and they are structured by the network of internal communications. These complexes of cooperation are neither identical with organizational units. They form a third structure besides the competencies and the physical forms of materials. These three structures may be congruent, but in modern agencies they are often not. The most important structure for accessing records produced during the work is the network of communication, while its differences from the two other must be obvious and may not be obscured by the description.

The formulation of unit-titles is influenced by the place of the unit inside the arrangement scheme. The titles themselves are part of the structure and reflect it in their wordings. They indicate actions as concrete events inside the differentiated competencies. They describe and allow access to the past activ- ities and thus represent information potentials. If the headings of arrangement groups indicate an overall responsibility, the single titles do not need to repeat this indication but can well be formulated as sections inside the complex of operations.

3.1.3. The form of the presentation The use of the internal structure and the arrangement scheme as first point of entry into a fonds needs forms for the presentation of finding aids, that make it possible to navigate through the fonds. In traditional paper based forms, finding aids have the appearance of books or brochures, not of library catalogues. This form allows us to convey meanings that cannot be integrated into card catalogues. The introduction of the finding aid gives information about the growth and use of the fonds and explains how it came into the archives. The following table of content has predominant importance for finding aids. It shows the arrangement scheme and thus introduces the reader to the structures of the fonds. The knowledge of the structure allows to browse

ACCESS - T H E R E F O R M U L A T I O N OF AN A R C H I V A L P A R A D I G M 67

through the book purposefully, because the single descriptive information on unites is arranged according to the scheme. The individual place of a single descriptive unit together with its name attribute important meaning to the description.

The new techniques of internet presentation enhance the possibilities of structured presentations. Now the arrangement scheme can be made constantly visible in a navigation frame. Different levels of more or less concentrated information can be accessed through links. And even supple- mentary information like the documentation on decisions taken during the archival processing of the fonds can be added on different levels of the arrangement scheme as it would have been more difficult with paper print outs. This way the description helps the investigation. The interpretation starts with browsing through the finding aids. Arrangement and description for a structured presentation can allow access to the information potentials on several levels of intensity even if the pieces of archival material are not indicated individually.

3.2. Access and appraisal

Appraisal too is concerned by the paradigm shift towards access. Access as a concept for appraisal allows a clear view on the neutrality of appraisal decisions. If one user or one question is privileged by keeping a certain group of records, others cannot be served and the representative function of the units kept in the collection will vanish. Such decisions would restrict access in spite of its good intentions.

The aim of appraisal is to keep the whole information potential. But that does not mean to keep all records physically or as single units. The decision of the archivist to dispose of certain records and to keep others bears information for users, as it tells them, what was regarded as representative or not. The central question is how to achieve the access to a most complete representa- tion of the original information potential that will allow to construct history out of a network of detectable stories.

As no administration gets its money for collecting information on the outside world for later use in the archives, the informational description of reality, as it can be read in letters, reports or statements in records, is always guided by the interest of getting something done. Many letters in admin- istrative paper work express applications, requests, demands or answers, decisions and notifications. The authors of the letters on both sides know the context and do not need to explain it. The writings on paper or in electronic form are purposefully oriented towards activities and initiate or close decision making. The information gathered for the decisions cannot be reused as such. It cannot be transmitted outside the process that collected and used it without

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loosing its meaning. Only the process as a whole together with its efforts to inform itself can be interpreted.

Like description appraisal is based on an analyzes of the internal structures of the fonds. The answers found during these investigations are needed for both tasks. Description and especially the representation of the internal struc- ture with the arrangement scheme indicate which records need to be kept and help to identify them. The distraction of the greatest part of originally created records is the best way to open the finally kept records for reference. That is why appraisal is not a means to destruct information, but to open archives for investigation by external observers and thus to make information accessible.

3.2.1. Secondary value: demonstrating the internal relations The evidential value, as it was named by Theodore Schellenberg (Schellen- berg, 1956), indicates the potential of records to demonstrate the working methods and the relationships that were active while the records emerged during the actual work. The distinction between primary value for the admin- istrative cooperative operations and the secondary value for investigations can lay open, why the records were created and why they were used. The concept of secondary value can shed light on the primary purposes and analyze them. Thus not only the operations of the records creators but also the creation and handling of the records themselves can be understood. Their purposes become clear and they can explain their structure and content. The question of the reasons for writing down, what can be read in them, is not verbally answered, but the answer can be found through the interpretation of the records and the motivations of their creators. The operations represented in the records can explain their purposes when they are reconstructed by the traces which they left over.

Appraisal finds out which records are most representative and typical and can be used as nodes of the structure. This structure than can be filled with records, that represent special cases as contrast to the typical forms. Thus they allow the reconstruction of the administrative activities and the understanding of the records. Also records with specially interesting information gathered during their creation can be added. All three motivations nevertheless should be transparent for the users.

The approach using the difference of primary and secondary purposes is the only way to open the administrative work and the emergence of the records itself for investigations. Only this way the different forms of files, different layouts of letters and the use of internal notes for different purposes can be seen and understood as interesting phenomena. This opens a large area of experiences of administrations especially useful for international comparison. But besides this effect the insight into the use of records in

ACCESS - T H E R E F O R M U L A T I O N OF AN A R C H I V A L P A R A D I G M 69

the producing agencies offers intense explanation of reasons and background information that helps to understand the archives and to find arguments for their interpretation.

3.2.2. Opening the actions for reference Appraisal helps to open the records through the destruction of ballast. What has been of high relevance for the administration might be tiresome for the interpretation because it shows repetition and redundancy. During the work each case had its own difficulties. It represented an individual problem different from all others and was solved by the one and only suitable solution. So for the primary value the decision making in such a specific case is the most important goal. Every letter, note or sign, contributing to the finding of the solution, is part of the originating process and therefore also of the records created just for this case. The internal structures reflect the processes even if the physical arrangement of the documents sometimes differs from it.

But not all such processes that occurred in the agency are needed for investigation because they repeat the operations and thus also their inform- ational potentials in masses. Instead of telling something these redundant repetitions obscure the insight into the structures and prevent from under- standing them. The results of appraisal are visible operations and their subjects in a representative concentration. They are ready for later refer- ence and connectivity outside the originating processes. To understand the operations during the process and to see why what happened and what the reasons were, representative files are sufficient. Their value for investigations is increased by the fact that they were regarded as representative by the appraising archivist, especially if this decision than is made transparent by documenting it in a supplementary information in the finding aid at that place where it is needed.

3.2.3. No destruction of information - but access to new knowledge Thus appraisal does not destruct information, as records only contain information potentials and the information itself is created by the users through their combination of observations and their inference of phenomena. Appraisal leads to the destruction of records. Doing this it allows actions to vanish, that used writing for their organization instead of oral communication only by chance and that were kept because of their inherent stability as they used paper as support. Other communications in oral form were not kept and therefore they had vanished and do not need to be appraised. But all communications, were they oral or written, had their effects on later activities. They initiated or hindered other operations, they influenced the thinking of other persons and their attitudes and with these effects they remained part

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of the common memory, even if they did vanish as operations and were not remembered as single communicative events.

The holdings of archives after appraisal consist of unique organizational activities which were identified as characteristic for the administrative unit, that produced them. They are represented by the writings, used for their organization. Because activities as such cannot be stabilized, the writing represent them by their initiating or approving effect. They show a combina- tion of "before" with the intention of something to be done and "after" with a confirmation of the action that allowed further operations to start. Such writ- ings, often without explicit wordings, allow to us gather what the actual event was. As these combination of timely different sides of events were referred to during the following process, such traces of operations give them plausibility and reliability as authentically represented. Out of these forms of writings, which may well contain long texts and small notes or can even just consist of a hook or a line in a certain color, the actual events can he reconstructed. Actions and events cannot be read, but observed. That is what happens when records are interpreted for investigations.

Appraisal opens the way to gaining new knowledge through analyzes of the past. Purposeful action needs knowledge about the situation and about the effects of former activities. Planning of the future needs knowledge of the past. Prognosis is based on diagnosis. But the planned activities that create the need for knowledge, are new all the time. They do not repeat itself, because if they are done one time, the need for that action is fulfilled and a new problem comes up. The content of the needed knowledge is dependant on the situation and the concrete need cannot be anticipated. But observation of actions is one of the most effective ways of gaining new and authentic knowledge. Than past activities can be turned into experiences to learn from. Such observation can be done with the stabilized operations, that used writing for their organization and that are therefore reconstructable by their traces in the archival holdings.

3.3. Access and preservation

The custodial paradigm may lead to the assumption, that access and preser- vation are contrary goals. Access endangers the objects, because every transportation, every touch of fingers, and every climatic change presents risks for the integrity of the material. So it seems to be most desirable to stop any consultation. But on the other hand, without access would preservation not be possible. Preservation is an expensive activity and it can be made accountable only if it allows the public to get the information wanted. So intelligent strategies are needed, that prevent the information potentials from any damage and open them at the same time for any use, that may be wanted.

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3.3.1. Preservation for the future or for today? The preservation of the original status serves two goals. The first and most obvious one is to keep the material in good shape and conserve it over time to transmit it to future generations. This aim is focused on the future and wants to allow the descendants to dispose of a legacy of sources about the present times. It concerns the difference of past and future. The other goal is based on the switch-over from primary to secondary value and has to do with the difference from closed and open. With crossing the boarder-line between the time of creation and the time of inspection the actual status of the material at this moment offers the most complete information potential about its growth and purposes and about the effects it had on the contexts. The transferal to the archives stops any further growth because it definitely stops the use for internal communication. The switch-over from communication to observation marks the limit beyond which observation can be neutral to the aims and goals of the initial communications, because with the transfer of the responsibility for the materials and after finishing the original communica- tions, only the network of communications as a unit, the triggers and reactions that constructed the processes as a whole can initiate further reactions. Preser- vation in this concept means the stabilization of the informational potential at the moment, when the records ceased to grow. Any change occurred to the material later-on is difficult to identify and it might disturb the interpretation. When the files are used in the archives any change, that might occur, must be distinguishable from those phenomena representing an event during the actual use. The preservation of the status of transfer may be done by preserving the original physical status, but it might also be achieved by a reproduction or a conversion to microfilm, that perhaps conserves the original image even better than its own aging support. The image allows the virtual reconstruction of the original at the time, when the photo was taken. The representation cannot change with time. Only the support of the image can get traces of aging. So the reconstructable shape may even be more authentic than the original.

This aim of preservation is focused on the present times. It serves the users of today by giving access and securing the authenticity of the archival material for actual interpretation at the same time. Preservation in this sense as a methodology of assuring authentic meanings is guided by archival prin- ciples. Also in this context of preservation the focus on access opens the way to service orientation and to intelligent strategies. Preservation cannot just consist of repairing damaged materials and letting them be used again until the next reparation is necessary. Intelligent strategies are asked for, that protect the original but do not restrain or even enhance the use.

Like appraisal and description preservation serves the accessibility of archives and of their information potential. Lots of those potentials reside

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in formal characteristics. But their number is endless. Any aspect of form or appearance may be useful for the interpretation of the meanings. Any phenomenon, which may perhaps not be realized today as a sign or a carrier of information, can be useful for specific questions about reasons, intentions and effects. That is why the concept of intrinsic value is useful for the choice of preservation strategies.

3.3.2. Intrinsic value Access as focus of preservation shows the need for criteria that help to estimate the talkativity of formal, external and materialized traces. They represent the intrinsic value and formulated as such they can guide the choice of preservation measures in concrete cases. Measures taken for preservation of archive material, the conservation of the originals or their conversion to other supports, run the risk that external formal features of files and printed works may be overlooked or falsely evaluated when their importance for the interpretation is not known. The ordering of pages in files of loose sheets, the bindings, the pencil notes of one person in the files, all these features are clues which give evidence to those who can interpret them about the context of activities and their creation. This insight is non-verbal and depends solely on appearance. This makes it direct and authentic but also dependent on the understanding of the person looking at it. Preservation strategies have to respect their potential usefulness for interpretation and reflect on how to keep them visible or reconstructable (Menne-Haritz and Br~bach, 1997).

Intrinsic value is not restricted to paper support. Preservation of elec- tronic records too is concerned with the stabilization of traces emerged from common activities and communications. As for paper the transfer of respon- sibility from the administration to the archives means that the records should not be changeable any more. On paper every alteration is visible and trace- able. In electronic form the records themselves do not show any trace of aging or manipulation. Only attached software protocols could indicate logs if they are permanently readable. The switch over from production to observation is not dependant on the material of support. It is needed for any interpretation and understanding by an external observer, that means by any researcher in the archives. So electronic preservation means strategies to keep recordings unchanged and to prepare for the reconstructability of the original contexts of creation. For these aims combined approaches linking analogue and digital storage as well as structuring methods based on tagging languages like XML are thinkable. Encapsulation as well as later reconstruction are also methods of stabilization and therefore useful for the purpose of reconstructability.

Description, appraisal and preservation get a clear orientation with the concept of access. Their goals are better perceivable and the purpose of

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archives is less questionable. Access give archives strong roots in the present and avoids the difficulties to explain, why the present society should - besides the cultural aspects of history - maintain institutions specialized on managing the past for future needs. Access as an archival concept can also give new directions for thinking and theory building in archival sciences. It offers new explications for old principles like provenance and can also link archival science into an interdisciplinary network of new scientific approaches for the changing world of electronic communication.

4. Access and archival theory

The access paradigm has the capability of reformulating archival science in such a consistent way that it can better offer connective interfaces to other disciplines (Gilliland-Swetland, 2000). Especially social sciences play an eminent role in the emerging scientific reflections on administrative work, on knowledge management and the construction of communication. The networking capacities of ICT have initiated a new relevance of those theories. Computer sciences use models of social interaction to construct the new networks of cooperation.

Archival science has always analyzed records, their creation, and the traces left by their communicative use. Because records are closed and inactive when they come into the archives, they allow us to get knowledge about what happened before with them and when they were created. They represent the operations in action more or less directly and intensively. They are common actions and thus social activities. They lay open whole worlds of social interactions, which can be observed without interviews or question- naires. These traditional methods of social, empirical analyzes run the danger of producing the results, that are more or less explicitly expected or wanted. This effect is caused by the dilemma, that any observation of actual operations and communications either becomes part of it or disturbs and changes it. Every external observation of an operation before the end of these operations is integrated and converted to an inside operation. Observation of actions becomes action itself. It turns into participation in the process. If actors know that they are observed, they take this fact into account and respect it when planning further operations. Records instead were created without having to think of a third person. Observed and investigated after the finishing of the observed operations - which normally is unthinkable without records - they convey all the information needed to understand how that happened.

Different structural forms and the different forms of physical composi- tions of the combined operations reflect more or less the internal structures of writings and recordings. Nevertheless the insight into the operations

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is a prerequisite for understanding the information collected during the communication processes.

Archival sciences have developed methods for understanding operations after they have taken place. Operations, that should be observed, first can operate in an undisturbed environment. But they are still there when they are finished. With its special techniques of analyzing and presentation of internal structures archival sciences have prepared a body of methods useful for process analyzes that try to understand them before they are changed through inspection or participation. The differentiation between past actions and present analyses (another way to distinguish between primary and secondary values) is the basis for really understanding what happens and for developing a basis for future actions. The diagnosis needs past in its status of unchange- ability for the prognosis of what might happen in future. This neutrality towards the observed events is the prerequisite for present operations, because it conveys all the reasons and relations needed to understand them and to learn from them.

4.1. Business process and provenance

Provenance as the core theoretical basis for archival sciences expresses the orientation towards access. When it came up for use in the archives in the end of the nineteenth century it was regarded as concept facilitating the management of the new masses of records being transferred from increas- ingly differentiated agencies to the archives. It made life easier, not only for the archivists but also for the researchers, because it was better adapted to the inherent characteristics of archives. The practice showed the way and the theory explained it with developing archival science. The practical guideline implied to keep all records from one agency together without mixing them with those from other agencies. Theory identified this approach as practical as long as the organizational structures were rather stable and questioned the reasons why this principle is so useful for archives.

The target of the principle of provenance is the understanding of the emergence of records through common purposeful activities combined to processes inside organizations. Therefore in modern terms provenance can be understood as the business process, which was organized with the help of the recordings. This clarification is needed because of the increasing incongruities between organizational structure, forms of the paperwork and the networks of communications (Cook, 1984). Business process analyzes is an expanding approach of economic sciences. For archival purposes it needs more analytical capacity and archival science can offer these analytical methods to economies.

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For the analyzes of business processes it is useful to start with a clear distinction between production processes and decision making process as types of social interaction. The production process begins after a decision about a certain product is made, either as offer to the market or as order by a client. This process is closed, because its result is known from the beginning. The character and the sequence of the operations needed can be drawn from the definition of the product. Such a production process can be conceived and optimized from its end. It can be implemented for every new preparation of the same product.

If the end is not describable in advance, but should be defined by the process itself, than a decision making process with special characteristic forms is needed. It cannot be modeled before it starts. It needs different techniques for its construction, planning and control. Its product, the decision is needed only once, because it changes an open situation into a selection out of different possibilities. When the selection is done the open situation is gone and will not reappear again. Decision making processes are different from each other and cannot follow one model. Instead they need special instruments for their internal construction.

Processes Production process Decision making process

Results

Control

Construction

Form

Economic effects

Predefined closed results

Controlled by external influences

External model

Modeled on the wanted results

Multi repetitions/efficiency

Open end

Operationally closed with internal control

Internal self-constructed history

According to the open problem

Well planned/effectiveness

Production processes work well without internal communication. They only need to know how to behave for special steps. Such processes can be auto- mated and run by machines. They are what the cybernetic Heinz von Foerster called in the terms of Alain Turing the trivial machines that are defined by their predictable output in contrast to non-trivial machines that behave unpredictably. Non trivial machines use their own history for their internal construction. They build up their own prognosis on the diagnosis of the own, self produced past. Non-trivial machines operate through gaining knowl- edge as self produced answers to questions concerning the next operations (Foerster, 1982). This technique of process construction is especially inter- esting for archivists. Processes that need their own stabilized history for the construction of themselves and that keep the traces of past operations for this

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purpose, will also offer insight into their own construction, when the process itself is finished.

The understanding of decision making processes gives the possibility to see the different motivations for the use of writing, be it in analogue form on stable supports or be it in volatile digital formats, as opposed to the use of oral exchange of messages or deliberation, and thus to identify why it was used.

4.2. Relevance for electronic records

Can electronic writings offer the functionality of analogue writing for the construction of decision making processes?

Prerequisite for using electronic writing for the construction of decision making processes is stability, because only stability of the original status allows reconstruction of intentions and plans as well as of their achievements. Only stable recordings of the difference between past and future can represent time. Stability - before and after the actual operations - is the prerequisite for self-preserving operations and any later reference to them. Stability is not a physical characteristic but it means a function. It means a stabilized, unchanged information potential. Electronic writings cannot be physically stable. But if they can have the function of stability they can stabilize their potential meanings. For example a certain function of stability is offered by e-mail software. When the addressee of a message forwards it to other persons, some software marks the initial text with signs in the beginning of the lines and adds information about the first communication into the body of the message. The new addressee sees without verbal explication, that the text had been forwarded, from whom it originated, and when it was received. Commentaries by the first addressee are to be identified by missing marks and thus they are well distinguishable from the original text. With these effects e-mail messages achieve to represent different time layers and their inter- relations. They show a distinguishable difference between before and after. That is the same effect like that of annotations on a paper document, that also show different time layers integrated into the text, not stored in metadata, and present the development of the informational potential of this unit. Thus e- mail is one form of stabilizing time for the construction and representation of processes built by communication events. Its broad acceptance shows how useful this approach is.

For more complicated operations and decision making processes further electronic instruments are needed that capture time and stabilize it in a similar way. The transparency of electronically supported processes too needs stability of triggers and reactions. Perhaps the combination of analogue and digital forms for archival preservation may be useful. Somehow the switch-

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over from primary to secondary value has to stop the flexibility or volatility and to start the stability to guaranty authentic insight. And this may well already be necessary during the continuing use of the records concerning older parts of it that have lost other relevance than representing the past history of the affaire as a sort of self-reference for further planning and thus have already switched over to secondary purposes.

5. Results of the access paradigm

The access paradigm reinforces the theoretical challenges as well as the prag- matic implementation of archival methods and ideas. It can combine both and assures the practical relevance of theory development. User surveys can be used to evaluate the quality of the service and theoretical debates can open the possibilities to learn from practical experiences in the light of fundamental aims and principles. With this strong connection to practical experiences theory development avoids to take off from the actual problems and to isolate itself from other disciplines. Theory, that explains practical experiences and helps to reengineer the practical work is helpful. Practice without theory is blind. The access paradigm is the clue that brings together both in a way that they produce new ideas and develop new methods of quality control.

The Respect du Fonds is the respect for the user, because with this theoret- ical basis archives offer the best service. Open and accessible archives define their place in the society of today and assure the capability to combine past and future to present actions. With this concept new aims can be perceived and realized as services. That is first reconstructability as a method of providing the possibility to create new knowledge and to learn from the past. Thus it can be used as a complementary instrument of memory besides storage. The second aspect is the possibility to create transparency in an effective way, that allows to distinguish and to control in a more efficient way insight and participation.

5.1. Reconstructablity: an alternative to the storage of memory

Reconstruction of past events is a broadly used technique to understand a present situation, especially in historical research. History chooses by itself what can be used as sources. If archives explicitly prepare sources for research, the interesting question for historians is, why just these materials and not others, why just this form is chosen. When they have reconstructed the intentions of the archivist who created that fonds and when it is clear what the effect of these intentions were, they can decide about the value of the sources for their research.

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Everything can get the quality of an historical source and it only depends on the research questions, if it will be one or not. Historical research has elab- orated the methods how to learn from past experiences, that are not actually present in the common memory. It shows how questions can be formulated and how phenomena can be regarded and used as sources. History as a scientific discipline explains how sources can be identified and understood. Sources cannot just be read to learn facts from them. For gaining new and reliable knowledge the sources' right to veto is even more important than what they tell in their wordings. This historical method of understanding events by analyzing the traces left behind when everything is finished and when the events did change something can integrate time in the technical sense of distinguishing between before and after into the understanding of the world. It uses the reconstruction of past events to explain phenomena of today and to provide a common understanding that allows to decide about how to plan future common actions. These methods can be used outside the historical research too for gaining knowledge about the past whenever it is needed as prerequisite for planning activities.

Access enhances the chance, that archives can be understood and used as sources for any purpose. Reconstructability is a main prerequisite for the use of records as sources and for understanding, what they were meant for. If they convey openly the intentions for their creation and if the effects of operations done with them are visible than the reasons of their messages are clear and can be the base of new cognition.

Reconstructability as an aim of archival work respects the autonomy of the researcher. It does not try to anticipate the research questions but lays open what ever can be seen. As a theoretical concept reconstructability turns the perspective around from input to output. And that is an important effect. The attention focuses on the needs. It takes the actual problems seri- ously and offers help to the common efforts to find the solution. In contrast the concept of archives as storage of information offers solutions without knowing whether or when the need will occur. It is oriented towards the behavior while the access paradigm is strictly oriented towards service.

5.2. Transparency: insight and arguments instead of believing

Reconstructability creates transparency. The operations and their inten- tions lay open in front of the observer. The past can be understood in an authentic way. It cannot be influenced by former intentions concerning later interpretation and understanding.

The degree of transparency depends on the form of communication used for the coordination. Oral deliberations are opaque for external observations. Only the participants know, what happened. Only they can know the internal

ACCESS - THE REFORMULATION OF AN ARCHIVAL PARADIGM 79

history of their interaction and decide what should be the next steps. An oral discussion cannot exclude someone who is present and who can hear the contributions. Persons present during the deliberations of a board meeting, can be divided form the board physically by a barrier or only functionally by a well defined task such as the one to take the minutes. They are no parti- cipants and their reactions are not regarded as contributions. Without such distinctions every behavior of present persons, even silence, is integrated into the process and influences it. Each effort to make such processes transparent by the observation of thirds change or eventually stop them.

The volatility of oral utterances combine them to the appearance of their authors who can thus influence the understanding by non verbal means. It vanishes when it is happens and can provoke reactions only once. In contrast to oral communication can writing be reused and it can be read by persons external to the process. But the use of writing causes a bifurcation between the two effects of verbal communications, that are the exchange of messages on the one side and the organization of the common process with the help of visual appearances on the other side. The stability of writing allows to repeat the communication again and again in contrast to the single communication operation caused by a vanishing oral contribution. It is separated from the author, who thus cannot combine it with gestures and mimic explaining its relation to preceding utterances. A written message repeats the need of inter- pretation both of the textual message and its form to understand the intended message whenever it is read. Therefore it does not allow connecting opera- tions following the communication. That is why it cannot be used to construct a process of interrelated time-layers in contrast to the oral communication that causes reactions and can handle interrelations. But written texts can be annot- ated and reworked together. Than however the text has not the function of a message to each other but it is the subject of collaborative work. Transparency is best achieved, when the common activities are open and reconstructable by the traces left behind during their organization. The permission to read texts, documents, reports and so on by thirds cannot really provide transparency if the operations during which they were produced or used are not clear.

In contrast to understanding participation is interested in the definition and achievement of certain common alms. Only afterwards can be analyzed why the aims were reached or not. But the result of the activities must be there before its reasons can be found. That is why participation hinders account- ability, because transparency and participation are two opposite concepts. Transparency can be granted only if participation is excluded and that means that effective functional barriers between both are needed. The unalterable past of actions to be observed is a secure means to exclude participation effectively and thus to prepare it eventually for the next time.

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5.3. Offers to other disciplines

The concepts of reconstructability and transparency offer methods and insights to other disciplines and their problems which they are discussing actually. Everyone who engages in a discussion process cannot expect to come out of it unchanged. The same happens for archival science. It can learn a lot from the newly expanding theories in other disciplines like second order cybernetics, business process analyzes, distributed cognition etc. It will surely change its appearance during this process. But this development is not threat- ening. Instead it reformulates the core competencies in a way, that they can be better understood and that they present connectivity to other disciplines. The increasing discussion on knowledge management as an answer to certain insufficiencies of the former concept of information is a good example.

The term of knowledge management replaces meanwhile the term of information treatment as description of new perspectives. What are the differ- ences between information and knowledge? Why is the concept of knowledge management interesting for archives? Knowledge management turns the understanding of information around as does the access paradigm for archival sciences. It focuses no longer on storage and presentation but on cognition and learning. It concentrates on the needs instead of the offers. This turn seems to be influenced by the development of the internet, where the question is not so much how to get information into it, but how to get useful informa- tion out of it. This question led to interesting creations like portals adapted to different needs. Their main achievement is the help with evaluating and combining sources for knowledge.

Knowledge management first realizes that information is something that can be gained. It gives the answer to questions, which had been there first and arose through the need to act. Information is no longer conceived as a storable unit but its character depends on its usefulness and it cannot be repeated, because then it would be redundant. The concept of knowledge management tries to define uses and to find ways how to capture the knowl- edge of an organization. This approach is related to the concepts of access and it could profit from archival findings. Knowledge management is the manage- ment of the difference between knowing and not knowing. It consists of the preparation of instruments and methods to gain knowledge in purposeful and effective ways on the one side and of the preparation for openness of potential sources for knowledge on the other. It prepares possible sources in a way, that they can easily be identified and used. A third part finally are those techniques and methods that bridge the gap between needs and sources and produce new knowledge in an efficient and purposeful way. Archival methods are needed especially for the opening of the traces bearing experiences of past actions as knowledge potentials. But they can also offer analytical methods that explain

ACCESS - THE REFORMULATION OF AN ARCHIVAL PARADIGM 8 1

how to learn from the different sources. Archival methods show how to use the past to gain new knowledge, not only in the form of explicit description of facts, but also in the form of past experiences as they can be reconstructed from traces left over by past events.

The concept of knowledge management is broader than the former concept of information management. It enlarges its scope by introducing the aspect of interpretation of sources. Knowledge is more than the management of infor- mation or written records. It needs special capacities of learning from every sources available and thus also the capacity to identify potential sources. The completeness of knowledge depends on the demand and not on the input of sources and it can only be measured by the needs and not by the scope of sources prepared in advance. So the responsibility for the quality and the completeness of knowledge is attributed to the user and not to a provider. But the provider has the responsibility for preparing potential sources like publications or records for their availability. He is needed more than before as an enabler of access instead of a deliverer of prefabricated information.

The new emphasis on knowledge means a stronger differentiation between the two sides of user and enabler together with more labor division and special competencies on both sides. These new tendencies enhance the relations to social and administrative sciences as well as to economies, because actions and operations as generators of experiences and knowledge potentials and as generators of knowledge needs become more important. Knowledge builds the bridge between the past from which it learns and future which it helps to prepare for. The interaction inside organizations and between their members become more important than writing and document production. The commu- nications and common actions are oriented towards common problem solving with the help of decision making processes. They build up social entities of interoperation and use special instruments for the internal coordination and control. Their functioning is a concern of social sciences while their efficiency can be understood and optimized with economic categories.

The guiding aims of archival efforts that are reinforced by the access paradigm concern the neutrality of archives towards their contents. It is the basis for a passionate commitment to the openness of the holdings. It is just that attitude that the famous quotation form Voltaire describes which says: "I may disapprove what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." With theses developments archival science reinforces its character- istics as a scientific discipline within a really interdisciplinary context. Access as an archival paradigm articulates the overall aim and the basis for further development in the new interactive world.

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