Provenance, Original Order

and Respect des Fonds

Prepared by: Roxanne Peña

Dr. Juan C. Buenrostro, Jr.

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Provenance

• Origin or source of

something, or as the

person, agency or

office of origin that

created, acquired,

used and retained a

body of records in

the course of their

work or life.

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Principle of Provenance

Do not put together archival

materials that have come from different creators

or origins

Do not reorganize by subject, chronology, geographic division, etc.

Respect the individual, family, or organization that created or

received the items

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Original Order

• Organization

and sequence

of records

established by

the creator of

the records.

Principle of Original Order

Maintain records in the order in which those records were created, received, filed

or used.

Look for evidence of a pre-existing

arrangement, devised by the

creator.

Preserving relationships among the

records and to respect

context in which the

records came to be.

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Principle of Original Order

Retaining existing filing systems and saving the archivist from having to decide upon and apply a new and artificial structure.

Researchers who often tend to think more about subjects and dates than creating agencies

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Respect des Fonds

• Respect for the creator of the archives.

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Principle of Provenance

Principle of Original Order

Principle of

Respect des Fonds

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Protecting the external integrity

(Provenance)

Protecting the internal integrity (Original Order)

Protection of the content, structure

and context of archives, serving as authentic and

reliable documentary

evidence

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Concept of Fonds

• Conceptual

container that holds

the materials of a

particular creator.

• Example: Leonardo

da Vinci fonds,

Albert Einstein fonds

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Challenges to the Principles of Respect des

Fonds, Provenance and Original Order

Absence of a whole

Importance of items

Reality of multiple provenances

Overlap between archives and collections

Original order and the last resting place

Focusing on function

Making order out of chaos11

Absence of a whole

• It is highly unlikely that

an archival institution

will ever have in its

possession, the ‘whole’

of the documents of any

individual, family or

corporate body.

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Importance of items

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• When managing individual items or small

units of materials, the archivist needs to

focus even more attention not just on

provenance, but also on custodial history.

• Some items does not have contextual

information or custodial history.

Reality of multiple provenances

• Archival materials passed

down from generation to

generation.

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Overlap between archives

and collections

• Artificial collections =

groups of archival

materials brought

together according to

some unifying

characteristic.

• Example: Maureen

Lee’s shoebox full of

old postcards15

Original order and

the last resting place

• Location of the archival

material is in the hands of

someone other than its

author and the structure of

the documents with cryptic

references to missing

pages.

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Focusing on function

• Functional provenance = The origin of a

group of materials as determined by the

activities that produce the materials (the

function), rather than organizational unit.

• Example: Department of Mines, Energy,

Petroleum and Gas = Department of

Mines, Department of Energy, Department

of Petroleum

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Making order out of chaos

• Archives that is badly disorganized.

• Example: Several boxes of archival materials of a deceased local author who had no family or close friends to help sort out.

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Absence of provenance

and original order

• Archival materials

that come with no

provenance and

so has lost its

archival value.

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Assigning Names

Some archivists may see merit in using the term fonds to identify archives; others may

prefer terms such as archive, papers or group.

Name and categorize archival materials so that they may be appraised and arranged,

described and made available.

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Americans

• Archives => public sector materials

• Manuscripts/Papers => private/personal materials

English

• Archive/Archives => collection, papers, correspondence, papers and correspondence

Canadians

• Records/Archives/Archives Group => public and organizational materials

• Manuscripts/Manuscript Group => private and personal materials

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Assigning Names

The challenge is to define those terms within the particular

context in question and then use those terms within the

particular context in question and then use those terms

consistently so that they remain meaningful and logical.

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Reference

• Millar, L. (2010). Archives: Principles and

practices. New York: Neal-Schuman

Publishers.

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