Archival appraisal

The archival review is the selection decision in takeovers mostly of official records in the archive, and is thus one of the central tasks of archival work. In the evaluation will be decided between acquisition and cassation. The evaluation of the following archival operations are the order and distortion. The aim of the review is the establishment of archival value.

Importance

The review is a sensitive and responsible task, since the selection of sources is thus a basis for historical research and historical knowledge of the next generations. In addition, the acquisition of records has quite safe in character, shows the traceability of administrative action on, reflects part of the social life of the parish and of politics - and can be partly supplemented by unofficial acquisitions.

Follow unprofessional Review: A Total tradition without exudates often leads to redundancies, resulting in a flood of information and unmanageably high costs A wild Cassation had tradition losses. A professional evaluation pursues an acquisition rate of approximately 1-5 ​​% of the written material offered. This requires knowledge about research trends, management structures and responsibilities of the respective registry agent.

Not as archival value befundene documents will be discarded as Kassanda and are irretrievably lost as sources.

Because archive technical points should decide on the Archivgutbildung, evaluation sovereignty lies with the archives.

The fact that the assessment has a central position, it becomes clear, inter alia, that ( Vd A ) since 2001, a working group is the Association of German Archivists Archival review. There is also a standing sub- committee at the national conference of the municipal archives ( BKK) at the German Association of Cities and special questions, the Forum evaluation, can be discussed in the issues of archival tradition education and a lively exchange takes place.

Preparation

Archival Review goes with records management hand in hand is necessary in regular contact with departments to prevent ad hoc excretions / acquisitions and also to avoid cassations by the services. Careful planning is absolutely necessary, the existence of a documentation profile is useful. Likewise, it requires precise knowledge of the existing archives, the previous tradition, tradition gaps, etc.

Methods

A visual inspection of each individual file to its lasting value is very time consuming. To increase the efficiency, three different processes are common, which are combined with each other:

Criteria

Is evaluated according to formal and content criteria, which should be as objective as possible:

• If the documents are not provided with retention periods?
• Adjust the documents of the tradition education in the respective archive?
• What is the source of value, and the gain in knowledge ( and the respective single file ) with respect to future user interest?
• Allows the conservation status associated with possibly with higher costs and consequential costs an archive?
• Horizontal - vertical

Notice this is the hierarchy authorities that parent give to child sites or tasks that the processing on peer level, eg several offices held. It is determined at which position gives the highest information value of documents of individual tasks; Key questions are here: Who was involved? Who was responsible? How was the decision process? At what point is to learn the most about the process. So double traditions can be avoided and determine the most detailed information.

• Information value and evidence value to Schellenberg

• Primary value and secondary value to Schellenberg

• In the evaluation of uniform mass files / records each dealing with individual cases, the choice can only be made randomly, without reducing the diagnostic value.

• Criteria here are a fixed selection of the initial letters of the surname (D, O, T, M ), possibly enabling the later longitudinal studies
• A complete takeover of entire cohorts
• Archiving fewer sample cases
• Archiving outstanding and prominent cases

However, this it can be close not exact conclusions about the whole. There is also the risk of subjective selection.

In the evaluation of non- filing, for example, cards or photos, others have tailored to the type of document evaluation criteria will be the basis. Born digital documents that are measured in advance (keyword DMS), also require other methods, as a technical component is added. The decisions and the underlying criteria should be theoretically and by protocol understandable. The purpose of the creation of a valuation and cassation Protocol.

Literature and sources

• Hans -Jürgen Höötmann / Catherine Tiemann: Archival Review - attempt a practical guide to the procedure for scrapped, subject files area. In: Archival Care in Westphalia and Lippe. No. 52.2000. Pp. 1-11. ISSN 0171-4058.
• Angelika Menne - Haritz: Archival Review: The process of conversion of closed records to auswertungsbereitem archive. In: Swiss Journal of History. Vol 51, 2001, pp. 448-460 (full text).
• Catherine Tiemann: Review and adoption of official Registraturgut. In: Reimann, Norbert ( Ed.): Practical Archives Administration. A Guide for Specialists in media and information services. Department of Archives. 2nd revised edition. Münster 2008. S. 83-95. ISBN 978-3-87023-255-9.
• A new position paper by the VDA working group " Archival review" to the tradition of education in the composite of 16 March 2011. ( Online). ( Previously: Positions of the working group archival rating in Vd A for archival tradition of education, 2004. )