Development of the Archival Appraisal Theory

As a result of the development of the archives management in modern times, archival appraisal theory gradually shows all its o perational features in records and archives management. As time goes on, we can see that archival appraisal theory is clearly superior to any other archival theory. There are four phases in the development of the archival appraisal theory since the early 20 th century. The first phase is called traditional appraisal theory period before 1950's, including Ages Appraisal System and Functional Appraisal Theory. However, Hilar y Jenkinson, the British classical archival scholar, exerted a tremendous influence over other archivists during this period. He published his famous book entitled A Manual for Archives Administration. Jenkinson opposed archives appraisal act in which archivists joined. Since 1950's, records are voluminous. Their growth in volume corresponded closely to the increase in social activities. Both the government and scholars foc used on the reduction in the quantity records. The appraisal theory then entered the second stage: the period of Double Values Appraisal theory presented by Theodore R. Schllenberg who has been called respectfully "the father of appraisal theory in the United States". In his landmark book, Modern Archives: Principle and Technique, he asserted that records had Primary Value and Secondary Value. The former reflects the importance of records to their original creator and the latter reflects the importance of records on subsequent researchers. Double Values Appraisal theory became the basic appraisal mechanism in Europe and the United States. The third phase was the new functional appraisal theories, the German "Society Analysis and Functional Appraisal" represented by Hans Booms, and the "New Macro-appraisal Acquisition Strategy" which has been used by the Canadian National Archives since 1989. Both of them claim that the internal connection among agency 's activities ought to be noticed and that the importance of governmental functions, programs, activities, and businesses should be analyzed and appraised. The Canadian scholar Terry Cook concluded their commonality in the thirteenth inte rnational archival congress. He held that the appraisal methodology should be a context-based, provenance-centered framework rather than a content-based historical-documentalist one. The fourth is electronic records appraisal theory, which suggests the establishment of double fulcrum that is essential in appraising electronic records: one reflects content appraisal while the other is technological appraisal . It app eared first in French Harold Naugler's Research Report, "The Archival Appraisal of Machine-readable Records: a RAMP Study with Guidelines." As a new focal point, the technological analysis emphasizes appraisal of the authenticity, integrality, usability and readability of electronic records. It also needs to kill viruses and check the media of records. With the development of the appraisal theory, some features have appeared. First, the principle of provenance and the archives appraisal theory impact each other. Secondly, influences of traditional history studies on appraisal theories have faded since 1950's; Thirdly, the appraisal criteria or guidelines show trends of usability and practicality. The coloring of pragmatism is getting clear than ever before.