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

whereby records can be judged according to their ability to
reflect accurately the functions and activities of the creating
body within the context of its contemporary society.
This brief overview of western European traditions of
appraisal reveals that almost all twentieth century archivists
acknowledge the problem of identifying value, and recognize the
need for an objective framework for appraisal in order to limit
the inevitable distortion of society's record that occurs with
the intervention of the archivist. Appraisal literature suggests
that, because value is relative to the perspective of the viewer,
archivists must clearly identify to whom the perspective belongs,
and for what purpose it is being ascribed. The value of records
to the creating society may differ from their value to the
archivist's society. In the same way, the value of the records
to the creator may differ from their value to researchers. These
differing values must be carefully separated in order to insure
clarity in archival judgements. At the same time, the discussion
on perspectives has caused several archivists to appeal
vigorously for government repositories to acknowledge and accept
responsibility for the important contribution of private records
creators to the documentary heritage of society.
Archivists, however, disagree on the means to achieve their
common objective. Sometimes they understand content and
structural analysis to be contradictory, but most often they
promote a poorly constructed hybrid of both approaches in a
theoretical vacuum. However, if the discussion is re-directed to
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