Evaluarea şi selecţionarea documentelor – între deziderate şi realitate în arhivistica românească
Appraisal and Selection of Records — Between Wishful Thinking and Real Fact in Romanian Archivy

Summary/Abstract: Archivy is regarded as an auxiliary science of History with the highest degree of impact over academic research, due to the fact that the historical records in the Archives preserve the majority of information the historians rely on. The appraisal and selection of the documentary material are archival activities helping to identify the past and present records preserved for future reference. In this prospect, the archivists are appealed to find the proper solutions to the various challenges in managing historical records and choosing those relevant for future research. The role of the archivy in current postmodern society is a challenge for academic community and, especially, for the archivists, the latter having to find new formulations for old concepts, to transform a profession rooted in nineteenth-century positivism and to adapt it to the post-modern, computerized world of the 21st century. In the core of the new paradigm of current archivy is the shift from the perspective of records as static physical objects towards their understanding as dynamic virtual concepts, the shift form records as passive by-products of human and administrative activity to records as active agents in shaping the memory of the world, broadly speaking, and particularly of the organisations. This shift requires also for the archivists to regard themselves not as much as passive guardians of a heritage, but as active factors in shaping collective memory. In other words, the theoretical archival discourse is moving from the notion of archives as product to that of archives as process, from structure to function, from record to the context of its creation and preservation, from what is kept after primary use to the active and aware construction of archiving the social memory. The archivist is called, in these circumstances, to risky balance between pressing needs of agencies to get rid of “useless records” and the need of researchers for historical sources. Can the archives specialist to achieve such a goal? Can it be clearly determined the fate of records, some destroyed and some preserved for good? Eventually, is it the archivist decision that preserved records are disclosed for access or not? In order to answer—in a Solomonic way somehow—to these questions, it must be ponder who is interested in records, how the State and various organisations use the information contained and, not least, the position of the archivist in society. In this regard, the selection of records gets, in our opinion, the highest importance in the impact over historical research and not only, due to the fact that the future researcher will only have access to those records classified as belonging to National Archival Heritage (in Romanian case), attribute granted today with the intent of making some records interesting for future historiography. A debate over selection topic cannot be exhaustive, being always on the agenda, with many understandings and controversies, one aspect being obvious: the definite need for selection, separation and elimination of records, created in a greater and greater amount by current society.Archivy is regarded as an auxiliary science of History with the highest degree of impact over academic research, due to the fact that the historical records in the Archives preserve the majority of information the historians rely on. The appraisal and selection of the documentary material are archival activities helping to identify the past and present records preserved for future reference. In this prospect, the archivists are appealed to find the proper solutions to the various challenges in managing historical records and choosing those relevant for future research. The role of the archivy in current postmodern society is a challenge for academic community and, especially, for the archivists, the latter having to find new formulations for old concepts, to transform a profession rooted in nineteenth-century positivism and to adapt it to the post-modern, computerized world of the 21st century. In the core of the new paradigm of current archivy is the shift from the perspective of records as static physical objects towards their understanding as dynamic virtual concepts, the shift form records as passive by-products of human and administrative activity to records as active agents in shaping the memory of the world, broadly speaking, and particularly of the organisations. This shift requires also for the archivists to regard themselves not as much as passive guardians of a heritage, but as active factors in shaping collective memory. In other words, the theoretical archival discourse is moving from the notion of archives as product to that of archives as process, from structure to function, from record to the context of its creation and preservation, from what is kept after primary use to the active and aware construction of archiving the social memory. The archivist is called, in these circumstances, to risky balance between pressing needs of agencies to get rid of “useless records” and the need of researchers for historical sources. Can the archives specialist to achieve such a goal? Can it be clearly determined the fate of records, some destroyed and some preserved for good? Eventually, is it the archivist decision that preserved records are disclosed for access or not? In order to answer—in a Solomonic way somehow—to these questions, it must be ponder who is interested in records, how the State and various organisations use the information contained and, not least, the position of the archivist in society. In this regard, the selection of records gets, in our opinion, the highest importance in the impact over historical research and not only, due to the fact that the future researcher will only have access to those records classified as belonging to National Archival Heritage (in Romanian case), attribute granted today with the intent of making some records interesting for future historiography. A debate over selection topic cannot be exhaustive, being always on the agenda, with many understandings and controversies, one aspect being obvious: the definite need for selection, separation and elimination of records, created in a greater and greater amount by current society.

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