A STUDY OF THE THEORY OF APPRAISAL FOR SELECTION By ...

usefulness."32 His manual does not provide a re-assessment of
appraisal, but, instead, merely presents a synthesis of accepted
ideas, augmented by practical suggestions, focusing on
Schellenberg's uncritical amalgamation of structural and content
analysis. Several have argued for the introduction of a new
archival function, referred to as re-appraisa1.33 But the notion
merely accentuates the failure of archivists in the North
American tradition to identify an appropriate timing for the
selection of records for preservation.
A major attempt to alter appraisal methods was presented in
1985 by Frank Boles and Julia Young.34 But it, too, suffers from
the fragmentation of knowledge into unconnected parts, and the
entrapment of the selection process in a subjective assessment of
value from the perspective of present use. Boles and Young
construct a model that attempts to "incorporate in a logical form
all the significant parts of appraisal, both those traditionally
acknowledged by archivists and those factors which are often
32 Maynard J. Brichford, Archives and Manuscripts: Appraisal
and Accessioning (Chicago: Society of American Archivists,
1977): 1.
33 The first to do so was Leonard Rapport, "No Grandfather
Clause: Reappraising Accessioned Records," American Archivist 44
(Spring 1981): 143-150. Rapport suggests reappraisal every
twenty to thirty years, which is similar to the timing for
initial and archival appraisal advocated in 1954 by Sir James
Grigg in England.
34 Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young, "Exploring the Black
Box: The Appraisal of University Administrative Records,"
American Archivist 48 (Spring 1985): 121-140.
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