Respect des Fonds, Provenance, & Original Order: Criticisms and Solutions

Kara Craig

LIS 775 : Introduction to Archival Principles, Practices, and Services

Professor Salvatore

December 12, 2018

 Critiques of the archival principles of respect des fonds, provenance, and original order

have existed since the early 20th century. Though respect des fonds is often understood as the

beacon of archival arrangement, critics and discussions around the practice call for a rethinking

of it, along with provenance, as these principles may not fully encapsulate or account for the true

intentions of the creators or the intended “original order”. Some take aim at the fundamental

misunderstanding and vagueness of the principles, which has led to a subsequent inconsistency

in practice. Some say that the practices are too limiting and don’t account for the growing nature

of the archive. By this, I intend to convey that much of the archival treatment of collections and

materials stems from the understanding that once a collection has been received, it is now

inactive or stagnant. But if you take into account the arrangement (or rearrangement) that an

archivist does to a collection, the continued creation of material by an organization, or, in the

case of a digital collection, the existence of hyperlinks, digital files, etc., the establishing of the

“fonds”, or the entirety of the records belonging to a creator, organization, etc., is almost

impossible and, inevitably, does a disservice to the preservation of the records and collections.

Some critics believe that respect des fonds and provenance are obsolete and others simply see

them as principles that need reexamination and transformation, especially in the archiving of

non-traditional records, such as digital materials. With this essay, I will be presenting and

discussing the criticism surrounding these fundamental archival principles and a number of

concepts and practices that have been developed in response, specifically as it relates to

addressing new challenges and developments in the field.

Before I discuss and present some of the criticisms of these principles, I think it’s

important to provide more context on the archival field as a whole. I believe presenting some of

the discussions around the “archival paradigm shift” as well as the “post-modern” archive can
provide more insight on the continuing discussions within the field as well as discussions on the

present and future states of archival concepts and practice. In his discussion of the archival

paradigm shift, Terry Cook, in “What is Past is Prologue”, provides us with a historical

discussion of the archival field in order to understand how it will continue to evolve in the future.

He puts forth five observations that have manifested over time and have brought forth a kind of

reevaluation of some of the theories and principles of the field. To summarize, those

observations are:

1) That the purpose of the archive has shifted from a “juridical-administrative

justification… to a socio-cultural justification for archives grounded in wider public

policy and public use”.

2) That, in regard to the preservation of records for their evidentiary value, archivists now

“try instead to ensure that records are initially created according to acceptable standards

for evidence”

3) That, more so in line with provenance, “modern appraisal focuses on the functions and

transactions of the record creator, rather than on individual records”

4) That, over the past century, archivists have gone from “being passive keepers of an entire

documentary residue left by creators to… active shapers of the archival heritage”

5) And, finally, that “archival theory should not be seen as a set of immutable scientific laws

disinterestedly formed and holding true for all time”, a point which is especially relevant

for the subsequent discussion.1 43 - 46

I present these themes discussed by Cook as they not only provide us with a foretelling of

inevitable change in the field, they also give us a succinct yet solid backdrop in order to

1 Cook, Terry. "What is Past is Prologue: A History of Archival Ideas Since 1898, and the Future
Paradigm Shift" Archivaria [Online] 43(1997), 43-46.
understand why there is a push by many to recontextualize and modify some of the basic

principles of the field. Cook also discusses the impact of electronic records on archival theory

and practice, a topic which seems to be the most pertinent in regard to the archival paradigm

shift. Though I will discuss this topic later, Cook asks an important question, that, due to the

somewhat unstable nature of the electronic record, and the many possible creators or contributors

who may influence the data of the record, “how does any one accountable institution preserve

reliable evidence of specific transactions?”.2

Fernanda Ribeiro similarly discusses a paradigm shift within archival science, which she

observes as going from a “historical-technicist paradigm” to a “scientific-informational” one.3

Like many in the archival field have recognized, much of the traditional archival practice was

borne out of the French Revolution, which birthed the concept of the fonds, and the Dutch

Manual, where much of the technical fundamentals of archival science stems. These events have

influenced the initial paradigm of “historical-technicist”. But, as similarly mentioned by Cook,

the emergence of electronic records and the challenges of a “social and informational reality” has

called into question the long-established standards for archives.4 Ribeiro presents many

challenges to these standards spurred by the historical-technicist paradigm, some of them being

that “the service/use function - one of the factors which configures the archive… - has been

superimposed… over the organic structure of archival systems, what leads to deviant

representation of archives through the respective finding aids…” , that “the notion of the

‘fonds’... has a merely operative character and it isn’t obviously adequate to a scientific

knowledge as we conceive it today…” and “the static concept of ‘document’... has also come to

2 Ibid., 41.
3 Ribeiro, Fernanda. “Archival science and changes in the paradigm.” Archival Science 1 (2001), 295.
4 Ribeiro, Archival science, 299.
reveal inconsistency in materialising the object of Archival Science…”.5 Ribeiro’s point on the

service/use function enacted by archivists seems to connote a kind of counter- intuitiveness of

the natural change and growth of archival systems, while her latter two points directly point to a

lack of clear definition, and inevitable misunderstanding, of two central concepts in archival

science: the object, or item, and the fonds. Ribeiro points to the need for a new paradigm, a

“scientific-informational” one, with the “two essential components…: the issue of science and

the issue of information, considered here as the object of that very science”, or that the object (in

this case, information), as an entity, can be studied by a science.6 I don’t want to get too much

into Ribeiro’s paradigm but do want to highlight her delineation of this paradigm as being

especially focused on the object.

Though not to explicate on the many prescriptive suggestions that both Cook and Ribeiro

have for these developing paradigms, I intend to present two perspectives that provide substantial

contextual information on the manifestation of archival science, especially as it has developed in

the late 20th and 21st centuries. The themes discussed and concepts challenged assist in setting

the tone for the many criticisms of long standing principles, much of which has emerged due to

the paradigm shifts discussed. Terry Cook, in his discussion of the archival fonds, touches on the

misunderstandings and tensions of what actually constitutes the “fonds.” He states that “Archival

practice encompasses record groups, manuscript groups, collections, fonds d'archives, additional

accession systems of control and much else besides, all competing to be that "essential unit".7 All

of these competing components make for a discord not only in terms of the physical arrangement

but in the theoretical manifestation of these principles. With such conflict, it’s understandable

5 Ibid., 300-301.
6 Ibid., 304-305.
7 Cook, Terry. ‘‘The Concept of Archival Fonds and the Post-Custodial Era:
Theory, Problems and Solutions.’’ Archivaria 35 (1993), 24.
why there may be criticism of these long-standardized principles. Cook provides a breakdown on

the central conflict within the theory, and the proliferation of respect des fonds, specifically that

there are external and internal dimensions of this principle. He writes, “Early practice stressed

the external dimension of keeping archival records clearly segregated by their office of creation

and accumulation” which would create a single fonds, but that “[the] internal dimension of

maintaining the original order or sequence of records from such offices within each fonds was

less emphasized”.8 This dichotomy of external and internal was carried out further, Cook writes,

through the concepts of provenance and the “sanctity of original order”.9 According to Cook, and

others, this had led to a kind of duality in the understanding of the archival unit, that “[it] is the

tension between a function, a process, a dynamic activity on one hand, and a concrete product, an

artefact, a record on the other.”10 Though there is much discussion on and questioning of the

principles of respect des fonds, provenance, and original order, conceptually, for Cook, they hold

much validity in regard to the preservation of the record. Cook states that “[by] adhering to these

principles, archivists are able to preserve the organic nature of archives as evidence of

transactions”.11 Though this may be true, specifically in regard to the preserving of a record’s

evidentiary value, there still exists critiques on these principles in regards to records creation

processes by organizations.

As mentioned by David Bearman and Richard Lytle in their essay “The Power of the

Principle of Provenance”, much of archival theory has been developed based off of the general

hierarchical understandings of organizational structure, that “...the classical view of

organizations emphasizes the importance of hierarchy, in a theoretical world where a given

8 Ibid., 25.
9 Ibid., 25.
10 Ibid., 25.
11 Ibid., 26.
bureaucratic unit is directly subordinate to no more than one higher unit”.12 Bearman and Lytle

describe how faulty this dated understanding of organizations is, especially as it relates to

archival theory, as these do not translate across all organizations and, over time, organizations

can restructure and reform their offices. This is relevant to archival theory because this dated

understanding has lead to dated theories and practices. Simply, “The problem is that the current

archival model does not fit such living organizations”.13 We can best see this in relation to

provenance. Katherine Gavrel, in her study on the potential problems that may arise in the

handling of electronic records, mentions the challenge of providing context for records creation,

which we can understand through the lens of provenance. She says “To provide such context at

the fonds level is, in many cases, a formidable task as the fonds may consist of series which

originate from several administrative bodies resulting from reorganizations of programs or

functions”.14 Gavrel, like many others, touches upon this disparity of arranging records or

materials in accordance to provenance, as the creating entities, as previously stated, are

constantly reorganizing, restructuring and not necessarily singular. Laura Millar echoes a similar

sentiment on provenance and its relationship to the fonds. She writes from the “Canadian

approach”, which is very much aligned with traditional approaches, to handling records. She

explains that “if you have the records of one creating agency, you keep them together according

to that creatorship, as an organic whole”.15 She goes on to say that “[these] acknowledge the

organic unity of the records and reflect the sense that records come in whole, not in parts”.16 But

Millar questions this dubious representation of creatorship and a collection of records and how it
12 Bearman, David, and Lytle, Richard. "The Power of the Principle of Provenance" Archivaria [Online]
21(1985), 17.
13 Ibid., 19.
14 Gavrel, Katharine. “Conceptual problems posed by electronic records: a RAMP study.” Paris: General
Information Programme and UNISIST (1990).
15 Millar, Laura. "The Death of the Fonds and the Resurrection of Provenance: Archival Context in
Space and Time" Archivaria [Online] 53 (2002), 4.
16 Ibid., 4.
relates to provenance. She states that “One body of records can derive from many creators, and

one creator can leave records in many physical locations” and asserts “Provenance and the fonds

are not the same, nor do they represent a constant, one-to-one relationship”.17 Because of a

possibly flawed and outdated understanding of organizational structure and records creation,

provenance and respect des fonds have become conflated with one another and have rendered a

kind of unilateral application in arrangement. This ongoing linking of the two principles has

forced onto the records the archival misunderstanding of organizational structure, imposing an

understanding on the record which threatens its organic creation and nature. Millar then posits a

great question surrounding our understanding of the fonds and the archivists handling of it. She

says “Archivists don’t just manage records; they actively decide what will be kept and what will

be removed, through the very process of appraisal. Archivists manage the residue, not the

entirety; the remains, not the totality. If there is no fonds, where is the logic in assigning a title

that identifies a fragment as a whole?”.18 How then do we understand provenance and respect

des fonds? Can the fonds ever be established? What are the implications of this as far as

provenance?

Bearman and Lytle, along with Peter Scott all take issue and focus their criticisms on the

concept of the record group (as propagated by American archival administration) and its impact

on provenance, regarding both arrangement and retrieval. Bearman and Lytle observe that the

record group concept has caused two defects; “One is the assumed importance of linking

documentation with the hierarchical placement of the creating unit” and “A second is that the

record group, like traditional library classification schemes, is essentially a shelf-order system”.19

Essentially, the concept of the record seems to be too bound up in the theoretical arrangement as

17 Ibid., 5.
18 Ibid., 6.
19 Bearman, David, and Lytle, Richard, The Power of the Principle of Provenance, 20.
it relates to organizational structure and that it also only lends itself to the physical arrangement

of the record. In “The Record Group Concept: A Case for Abandonment”, Peter Scott examines

the difficulties that arise between the use of the record group and the application of principles of

respect des fonds and original order. Scott states that the record group doesn’t account for “cases

in which a record transferred by an agency was actually produced by another” and, consequently,

does not “provide a meaningful administrative context for an archive”, which impacts any

implementation of original order.20 In his study of respect des fonds and born-digital records,

Jefferson Bailey places this in relation to the fonds, writing that “defining fonds as the records of

a ‘transferring or controlling agency’ was problematic since the agent of transfer was not always

the creating agency”.21 Scott also takes issue with the implicit treatment of the “creating agency”

and subsequent records as a single-existing entity, that “the central problem of the creating

agency record group for the physical arrangement of archive series arises from the fact that the

lifespan of the series and that of its creating agency are not necessarily coextensive. Series are

begun and ended, agencies are established and abolished, but such events do not necessarily

coincide”.22 This point is similar to Bearman’s assertion of the importance of understanding

organizations “as living cultures or organisms which create and use information”.23 This leads to

Scott’s next point, the static treatment of the record through record group series numeration. He

states that “[such] rigidity arises from the implicit assumption that the group is a stable entity,

whereas in reality the group is hardly ever static but is subject to change”.24 This subsequently

impacts the arrangement of a record group in accordance with the fonds, as a numbering system

20 Scott, Peter. “The Record Group Concept: A Case for Abandonment.” The American Archivist 29
(1966), 494.
21 Bailey, Jefferson. "Disrespect Des Fonds: Rethinking Arrangement and Description in Born-Digital
Archives." Archive Journal 3 (2013).
22 Scott, Peter, Record Group Concept, 494-495.
23 Bearman, David, and Lytle, Richard, The Power of the Principle of Provenance, 14.
24 Scott, Peter, Record Group Concept, 496.
arbitrarily imposed on the record may go against the creator’s original order and physically

places the record to an immovable number. Bailey also writes that “[ordering] series within

fonds was difficult since future accessions may need to be inserted at different places in the

existing organizational system, leading to physical disorder or the constant revision of finding

aids or inventories”.25 Though specifically discussing these archival principles through the

context of the record group, we can still see the impact of, in this case, original order and how it

goes against the organic nature of records creation, that this does not take into account the many

challenges that are posed with the provenancial treatment of creatorship when that creatorship

exists outside of the traditional understanding of organizational structure.

This treatment of organizational activities and the record group as a stable entity is

mirrored in the traditional treatment of analog or paper materials as fixed units. But, with digital

records, this poses a problem, especially to the fonds. In the context of digital files, the records

themselves are constantly being altered in minute but consequential ways. Bailey discusses this

in very technical terms. His discussion of the “bit”,“the binary, the magnetic flux reversal of the

spinning disk that is the origin of the digital object”, attempts to convey the malleability and

constant changing of digital files at the literal base level.26 He writes “each time these bits are

reconstructed, each time the file is accessed and translated into an interpretable, editable

representation, the file will be altered in minute ways (for instance, a file’s ‘last opened’ date)

and thus be composed of a new order as new bits are assigned to other available areas of the

disk”.27 This creates a problem if we try to understand this through the lens of respect des fonds,

as we cannot properly take into account the multiplicity in existence and meaning of digital

records. Gavrel similarly discusses this issue in her study on provenance and digital records,

25 Bailey, Jefferson, 2013.

26 Bailey, Jefferson, 2013.
27 Ibid., 2013.
stating “It is very likely that records are created on the screen from a variety of sources and are

never physically stored on-site. Not only is it likely that the records will not exist at a later date

for evaluation and possible archival retention, it is possible that some may not exist beyond their

life on a terminal screen”.28 Both Bailey and Gavrel make a focal point of the temporality of

born-digital records and how the traditional archival principles and practices are not currently

suited to address this. Though these examples are heavy with technical language, I believe they

both convey the instability of the digital record, in particular, and how the application of respect

des fonds and provenance may be faulty when attempting to preserve digital materials.

There have also been criticisms levied against original order. Bailey touches upon this,

citing its “lack of clarity on the custodianship of records prior to their delivery to an archive, the

problem of multiple and ongoing accessions, and the potential for incoherent or unknown

methods of ordering or classification by creating bodies”.29 In the case of archives that hold

personal papers and collections, he states “original order is seen as particularly problematic,

since a chronological arrangement seemingly provides the greatest meaning and value to the

records of an individual, but is unlikely to be the order of records upon accession”.30 Bailey’s

criticisms of original order are echoed by Frank Boles. Boles presents dissenting opinions in

“Disrespecting Original Order” and, specifically, calls into question its usefulness in application

in regard to the situation of “those papers lacking all order, either originally or due to hopeless

confusion” (30).31 In cases like these, provenancial information would have to be relied upon but

Boles asserts that “Compatibility… does not demonstrate validity. Validity must be

independently established” (30).32 With this, Boles presents a dichotomy between a new

28 Gavrel, Conceptual problems posed by electronic records, 1990.

29 Bailey, Jefferson, 2013.
30 Ibid., 2013.
31 Boles, Frank. “Disrespecting Original Order.” The American Archivist 45 (1982), 30.
32 Ibid., 30.
organizational system vs the concept of original order, that being access vs. a physical ordering,

or ensuring that contents of a collection are easily accessible vs arranging the collection as it

aligns with the archival principles of original order, provenance, and respect des fonds. In

discussing any possible new developments in archival theory that could remedy the ambiguity of

original order arrangement, Boles, along with other suggestions, emphasizes the values of access

and “[the] idea of usability, which can be defined as a describable, direct method of locating

documentation”.33 He writes “a theory of simple usability would establish a minimal archival

standard which could be supplemented by more elaborate descriptive devices but which at its

basic level seems capable of withstanding both pragmatic and theoretical considerations as well

as or more successfully than the principle of original order”.34 Boles’ offering of usability

specifically calls for a clarity in the arrangement process of archival materials to address the

vagueness of certain archival concepts.

With all of these criticisms, understanding the contexts of the creation of the record is

vital to understanding the record in and of itself. With this, the archivist is able to gain more

insight into the arrangement and provenancial information of a collection and, subsequently, the

fonds. Specifically in a post-modern archival environment, Monks-Leeson writes that

“postmodern insights have brought about a wider view of what constitutes relevant context,

principally by drawing in context’s cultural and societal dimensions” (43).35 This expansion of

determining what could be understood as provenance begs the question of how can other archival

principles, like respect des fonds and original order, be developed in the face of ongoing change

and shifts within archival theory and practice.

33 Ibid., 30.
34 Ibid., 31.
35 Monks-Leeson, Emily. “Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and Provenance from
Repository to Website.” The American Archivist 74 (2011), 43.
 One similarity between the below mentioned examples of a new examination of basic

archival principles is a shift to focus on the content of the record, and how the contextual

information within an archive should be displayed through a kind of system of links to show how

each is related to the other. Millar, Bailey, Scott, and others all present their own remedies as it

relates to this. To better understand provenance, Millar looks at how the terms are applied in

practice in the fields of archaeology and museology. With archaeology, the object’s “physical,

logistical, and spatial context is the key to understanding the object and, through the object, its

place and time. Thus, understanding its precise physical location is critical to contextualizing the

object”.36 This is important as far as how provenance is viewed, as the many contexts, not just

stemming from the creator or the fonds, shapes what the object actually is. In the context of art,

the provenance is specifically conveyed through the life of an object over time (sales receipts,

transactions, gallery inventories) and “[in] the art world, the item is not the fonds. An artist’s

oeuvre, or body of work, could be considered and equivalent of the fonds. But no one institution

ever pretends to have the totality of that oeuvre.”37 With these examinations, Millar states that

“Rather than limit provenance to creatorship, we should expand the concept to incorporate the

spatial and temporal qualities of archaeological provenience and artistic provenance”.38 She

believes that there should be a complete dismissal of respect des fonds and that respects du

provenance should take over, comprised of three provenance-related components: creator

history, records history, and custodial history. Millar believes that “Rather than pretend we have

the fonds, archivists should explain what we have in hand, explain its temporal and spatial

history, and let users create the linkages and so establish their own definition of the ‘whole’”.39

36 Millar, Laura, The Death of the Fonds, 9.

37 Ibid., 11.
38 Ibid., 12.
39 Ibid., 11.
 In response to the limiting and static treatment of archival collections and records, Bailey

mentions the development of the series system by Peter Scott “which sought to orient

arrangement and description according to function and use instead of agent or material type—a

theory that, Terry Cook noted, ‘shifted the entire archival description enterprise from a static

cataloging mode to a dynamic system of multiple interrelationships”.40 Bailey also discusses

various other methods and practices developed in opposition to respect des fonds, specifically

those that highlight the connections of the actual content of the records, seemingly focusing on

more so the document or item level. He mentions “archival bond, the series system,

parallelismus membrorum, and parallel provenance” as conceptual models that disrupt our

understanding (or lack thereof) of the “fonds” and attempt to show the actual relationship

amongst records.41 He states “What distinguishes these projects from archival representations of

old is that context and meaning are not exclusively provided through descriptive, narrative

details that precede an arrangement and location list, but instead through networks, inter-

linkages, modeling, and content analysis”.42 As previously mentioned, Peter Scott focused his

critiques on the record group, it’s many complications, and possible solutions to this particular

arrangement issue by focusing arrangement at the series level of the record. His emphasis on

flexibility and accessibility was shown through, similar to Millar’s approach, a kind of system of

relationships shown through links to other elements of the record. He says that any replacement

should and “base the physical arrangement of archives on the record series as an independent

element not bound to the administrative context” and that these would be presented by links

40 Bailey, Jefferson, 2013.

41 Ibid., 2013.
42 Ibid., 2013.
between creative organization/agency and family/person (for context) through control of the

record and its elements. 43

In their discussion on expanding the power of the principle of provenance, Bearman and

Lytle advocate for a stronger implementation of information derived from provenance, that it

“should be thought of as a means for providing access points to records in archival custody” and

be used as a “powerful tool for retrieval”.44 And, to serve as access points, Bearman puts forward

the importance function and form of the material. Function, because it is “independent of

organizational structures, more closely related to the significance of documentation than

organizational structures, and both finite in number and linguistically simple”.45 Form conveys

the “commonality of structure” (like a manuscript or diary) and “such record ‘type’ designations

capture in cultural shorthand a description of the informational content of records”.46 Along with

the previously mentioned criticisms of the conflation of provenance and original order, Bearman

and Lytle assert that, another way to remedy the confusion created by the record group,

“Provenance authority data… and data about actual records must be rigorously segregated”.47

Provenance authority data, as described in their essay, would contain “at least the name of the

entity, the source of its authority, its mission, its functions, the entity to which it reported or was

otherwise related, and its active dates”, all aspects that are specific to the creator (or creators) of

the record.48 This conceptual system would, hopefully, bring about a solution to the oft-

mentioned observation of the treatment of organizational records and collections as static

43 Scott, Peter, Record Group Concept, 498.

44 Bearman, David, and Lytle, Richard, The Power of the Principle of Provenance, 21.
45 Ibid., 22.
46 Ibid., 22.
47 Ibid., 23.
48 Ibid., 23.
material, ensuring that materials can continue to be added to an organization’s collection without

the need for restructuring and rearrangement.

Some of the above stated remedies for the issues posed by our traditional understanding

of archival principles have existed since the 1960s. These concepts and developments brought

about by the continued changing and shifting of archival theory and practice, as well as the

introduction and implementation of new kinds of objects like digital records (in both physical

and digital archives), has called for a reexamination of long-held practices regarding the

arrangement of records in accordance with respect des fonds, provenance, and original order.

Some believe that principles like respect des fonds and original order should be completely

thrown out to make way for a more provenancial-focused arrangement, while others believe that

these concepts merely need to be modified in order keep abreast to the ever-changing world of

information and records management. In presenting these, I hope to convey not only the

criticisms of these fundamental principles but also to show that there is an opportunity to

transform them and to develop new systems that are innovative, allowing archival practice to be

modern and able to contend with new developments in records creation.

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