The Role of Use in Defining Archival Practice and Principles: A Research Agenda for the Availability and Use of Records

Abstract

This article contends that use, rather than the form of material, is the basis on which archival practice and theory ought to be constructed. For this reason, the study of the uses and users of archives must be the goal of a research agenda for the profession, and the social sciences and information theory may provide the models archivists need to conduct such research. The aim of archival research should be to study systematically the relationship between the use of information and the ways in which it is or can be provided; it is from this relationship that the value of records and the information they contain will be determined and archival practices defined. Highest priority must be given to a national study of use in order to establish a baseline of information against which to measure and compare access and retrieval, reference service, acquisitions, management, appraisal guidelines, and documentation strategies.