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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archival appraisal | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_appraisal | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:07:46.545178+00:00 | kb-cron |
Macroappraisal assesses the societal value of both the functional-structural context and the work-place culture in which the records are created and used by the creator(s), and the interrelationship of citizens, groups, organizations – the "public" – with that functional-structural context. If appraisal designates the long-term value of the context of records, or series of records, for their potential research values, macroappraisal assesses the significance of the context of their creation and contemporary use. The benefits of this process are theoretical (identifying the important functions in society which should be documented) and practical (the ability to focus appraisal activities on records of the highest potential archival value). Cook also argued that in any appraisal model archivists need to remember the people who slip through the cracks of society, with the voice of marginalized groups often only heard and documented through "their interaction with such [white, male, and capitalist] institutions and hence the archivist must listen carefully to make sure these voices are heard". Julie Herrada, an archivist, added to this by noting there is value in collecting contemporary material and noted that sorting and weeding of records is best "left up to the archivist during the appraisal process".
=== Documentation strategy === Connected with the writings of Helen Willa Samuels, documentation strategy aims to reach beyond institutional frameworks when appraising collections. In the past, she says, archivists have been passive, concentrating on researchers’ needs rather than understanding a document in context. This has led to a circular problem, as researchers state their needs based on the context that they deduce from the archives, and as the archives create an artificial context based on researchers’ stated needs. "Archivists are challenged to select a lasting record", Samuels says, "but they lack techniques to support this decision making" (1992). Samuels argues that while archivists once needed to know and understand the complex bureaucratic structures of organizations, they must now understand the structures between organizations and ignore institutional boundaries. However, this is increasingly impossible; archivists need to examine documentation in a comprehensive manner. A documentation strategy is, then, "a plan formulated to assure the documentation of an ongoing issue, activity or geographic area". Its development includes records creators, archivists, and users, and it is carried out through a system-wide understanding of the intended life-cycle of the record.
=== Appraisal and the digital world === Within the archival field, there has been some debate about how to engage in appraisal in the digital realm. Some have argued that effective appraisal, which prioritizes acquisitions by archival institutions, is part of a coordinated approach to data, but that criteria for appraisal should incorporate accepted "archival practice", assessing not only significance of data to the research community, but significance of data source and context, how materials would complement existing collections, uniqueness of data, potential usability of data, and "anticipated cost of processing". Additionally, others have described appraisal and selection by web archives as including selection of materials to be digitally "captured" and URLS where a "web crawler will start", which fits with those who argue that the capacity to make appraisals in the "context of online representation and interpretation" is becoming possible. At the same time, some scholars have said that digitization of records may influence decision-making of appraisal since the greatest proportion of users for archives are generally family historians, often called genealogists, leading to implications for future record-keeping and entailing that digitization be clearly defined as just one component of appraisal which is "appropriately weighed against other considerations". Other informational professionals have also connected appraisal to digital curation of data, saying that one of the key areas of digital curation and digital preservation is selection and appraisal of materials.
=== Appraisal and the question of community archives === Apart from macro-appraisal, documentation strategy, and debate about the place of appraisal in the digital world, there has been questions of how appraisal relates to the phenomenon of community archives, or archival institutions which are run by and for the communities they serve, rather than a government or other external entity. Scholars are divided on approaches archivists should take, some saying that appraisal not only needs to be reframed when looking at community archives, while others say that communities should directly be enabled to participate in the appraisal process, defining what they see as valuable records, rather than having the archival profession take up this mantle. The latter was the case with a community archive documenting police brutality in Cleveland, Ohio, with scholars noting that citizen archivists maintain responsibility over management and direction of this people's archive, specifically as it pertains to outreach and appraisal of the archive itself, describing not only the archives' purpose but its construction. Even though, two archivists, Katie Shilton and Ramesh Srinivasan, proposed a "participatory archiving model" in 2007 in an effort to re-orient archival concepts such as provenance, ordering of records, and appraisal, hoping that it would help alleviate some representation by multicultural communities, this model would occur with a "traditional archives" rather than a community archives. They also acknowledged, when proposing this model, that it was labor-intensive and outside scope of most archival institutions.