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Article Evaluation
[edit]I am evaluating a Wikipedia entry titled "Fonds" for this class project.
Content:
[edit]The information in the article is very accurate, however it is not detailed enough. I can already note the absence of an explanation of provenance and the explanation of the hierarchal system seems separated and spread out. Upon reading closely, I feel like the explanation provided for why fonds were created is insufficient.
Tone and Sources
[edit]The article was neutral in tone and appropriate. Two out of the six sources did not have a working link anymore. Other than that, the sources seemed pretty well done.
The Talk Page:
[edit]The talk page only had one comment and this comment focused on the need for a better definition of sub-fonds and sous-fonds as well as a discussion of the role provenance plays in determining the sous-fonds.
The talk page also noted that this page was a part of WikiProject Libraries, WikiProject France, and a part of Wiki Education Foundation.
Overall, the major changes that need to be made with this article is to provide a solid idea of what provenance is, provide better definitions for sub-fonds (and maybe sous-fonds?), and elaborate on the hierarchal system and it's origins and use today. I might also add the see also other words like archival integrity and original order.
Fonds (draft)
[edit]In archival science, a fonds is comprised of a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization.[1] An example of a fonds could be the writings of a poet that were never published or the records of an institution during a specific period.
Fonds are a part of a hierarchical level of description system in an archive that begins with fonds at the top, and the subsequent levels become more descriptive and narrower as one goes down the hierarchy. The level of description generally goes from fonds to series to file and then an item level. However, between the fonds and series level there is sometimes a sub-fonds or sous-fonds level that helps narrow down the hierarchy.[2] [3]
Historical Origins
[edit]In the archival science field, it is widely agreed upon that the term fonds originated in French archival practice shortly after the French Revolution as Natalis de Wailly wrote Circular no. 14, which laid out the idea of fonds as keeping records of the same origin together because prior to this announcement, records were classified arbitrary and inconsistently.[4] [5] Wailly also coined the idea of respect des fonds which meant that archivists would leave the arrangement of fonds as it was originated by the person who created the records.[6] Respect des fonds spread across Europe after the publication of the Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives, commonly referred to as the Dutch Manual, in 1898 and the First International Congress of Archivists in 1910.[5]
Respect des fonds derives from the practice of provenance, which is the belief that archivists should keep a group of records obtained as a unit in itself and not merge it with other documents.[7] Provenance also is sometimes referred to as custodial history as it takes in account the different people or organizations that held these records prior to the archive obtaining them and the way they organized them.[8] Respect des fonds is often confused for provenance, but they are primarily different in that provenance refers to maintaining works by specific people or organizations as separate from others, and respect des fonds adds onto this by also maintaining or recreating the original order of the creator. The idea of respect des fonds and fonds would transform the archival world, and it is still in use today.
Modern-Day Usage and Practices
[edit]In modern archival practice, the idea of fonds still exists today, principally in Europe, England and North America. However, the fonds is sometimes changed slightly to suit other archival practices. For example, in England the term archive group is used instead of fonds, and in the United States' National Archives the term record group is preferred. Record groups are often compared to fonds, but in actuality they can be composed of more than one fonds or not even a full fonds.[9] In Australian archival theory, there is recognition of the principle of respect des fonds, but the theory focuses on series as the primary descriptive level and the existence of multiple provenances.[10] Fonds should not be confused with the term collection, which is used for document aggregations assembled based on some shared characteristic by a collector, but it is not created by the collector and it often does not follow provenance.[11]
The Fonds in Digital Archives
[edit]As archives today are increasingly being digitized (scanned and stored on a computer) and moved to an electronic platform, the idea of a fonds existing in an online database is harder to come to terms with. An electronic catalog does not sort its items in the fonds level of description to follow provenance procedures unless told to do so, and it does not automatically sort the items within in a chronological order to follow respect des fonds practices either. There is also the issue of items that are born digital, which is an item that has been created electronically and is not automatically subject to the hierarchy of a physical item. [12]The practice of implementing fonds in an electronic database presents new challenges in keeping a fonds together electronically as well as physically. As Jefferson Bailey puts it, "the database logic is nonlinear and there is no original order because order is dependent upon query."[5] In the digital context, some archives have taken to describing their holdings on a fonds or series level, or if an archive chooses to do a file and item level description, the fonds can be kept together by implementing metadata and ensuring that the metadata has information on the relationships between items to link together the item and its higher level descriptions.[13]
See also
[edit]Preservation in library and archival science
- ^ "About the Archives | Queen's University Archives". archives.queensu.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ^ Eastwood, Terry (2000). "Putting the parts of the whole together: systematic arrangement of archives". Archivaria. 50: 93–116.
- ^ Archives, The National. "The National Archives - Cataloguing archive collections - The National Archives". Archives sector. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ^ Horsman, Peter (2002). "The Last Dance of the Phoenix, or The De-discovery of the Archival Fonds". Archivaria. 54.
- ^ a b c Bailey, Jefferson (June 2013). "Disrespect des Fonds: Rethinking Arrangement and Description in Born-Digital Archives". Archive Journal. 3.
- ^ Hedstrom, M. & King, J.L. (2006). Epistemic Infrastructure in the Rise of the Knowledge Economy. In B. Kahin and D. Foray (Eds.), Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy (pp. 113 - 134). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- ^ Boles, Frank (Winter 1982). "Disrespecting Original Order". The American Archivist. 45, issue 1: 26–32.
- ^ "custodial history | Society of American Archivists". www2.archivists.org. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
- ^ "Archives and Records Management Resources". National Archives. 2016-08-15. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
- ^ McKemmish, S. (2017). Recordkeeping in the Continuum: An Australian Tradition. In A. Gilland, S. McKemmish, and A. Lau (Eds). Research in the Archival Multiverse (pp. 122-160). Clayton, Victoria, Australia: Monash University Publishing.
- ^ "Multilingual Archival Terminology Database". www.ciscra.org. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
- ^ Archives, The National. "The National Archives - Homepage". The National Archives. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
- ^ Zhang, Jane (Fall 2012). "Original Order in Digital Archives". Archivaria. 74: 167–193.