The Record Group Concept: A Case for Abandonment

the (or archive) the second category is the series, and the third is the item (consisting of one document or a number of documents fastened or bound together). The concept of the provides the required administrative context for archives and is used as a basis for (a) the descriptive inventory, (b) the physical arrangement of archives (i.e., the so-called shelf group), and (c) the numerical control of archives. Most archivists would undoubtedly agree, however, that, in attempting to apply the concept of the record group, they encounter in the organisation of archives problems of varying complexity, both administrative and physical. The present observations have as their object analysing some typical Australian problems in order to reveal the conflict between the concept of the record group and basic archival principles and proposing a solution in harmony with these principles. Basic Objectives If the long-established principles of respect des fonds (Provenienzprinzip) and respect for original order {Registraturprinzip) have any general validity beyond the immediate historical situations in which they were developed, it would seem that they entail the following objectives : 1. Archives should be kept in their administrative context, in the sense of both (a) the office unit and person producing them and (b) the record system of which they form a part. 2. Archives should be kept in the order in which they were produced, entered on record, or incorporated into a record system. A linguist by training, the author has been a member of the staff of the Commonwealth Archives since 1963 and is currently Archivist in Charge of Records Administration.