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

Importance of historical value as an appraisal criterion. With
the entry of historical scholars into the archival profession,
the methodology of appraisal was the identification of historical
value through a primarily intuitive analysis of the content of
records, coupled with a consideration of the needs of future
historical researchers.
By the mid-nineteenth century, the concept of historical use
as an arbiter of value was firmly entrenched in the appraisal
process in France. In 1839, the government established an
advisory commission to the minister for the determination of the
usefulness of documents. In later years, the commission included
archivists, administrators and historians. In 1844, the concept
of usefulness as an appraisal criterion was tied directly to
administrative and research interest. Permanent value was
identified by the administrative interest of the state,
departments, communes, churches or charitable institutions; or by
the research interest of the disciplines of history, science,
art, paleography, topography or statistics. All records relating
to these interests were to be indefinitely preserved.6
In 1921, in response to concerns of indiscriminate
destruction of valuable records, the French government
established rigid regulations that decreed that the greater part
of public records would be preserved, and elimination would be
6 Marcel Baudot, "Les triages at eliminations," Manuel
d'Archivistique: Thitorie at Pratique des Archives Publiques
(Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1970), 163-64.
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