Archival Theory: myth or banality?

Abstract

Archival theory too often is trivial, overwrought, unnecessary, or irrelevant. While theory in other disciplines can produce new insights and stimulate intellectual progress, theory in archives cannot play an analogous role and cannot advance the archival profession. It tends to oversimplify that which is complicated and to overcomplicate that which is simple. Much archival theory is public relations Babbitry that threatens to over-stratify the profession.