n.the usefulness or significance of records based on the information they contain that justifies their permanent or ongoing preservationGracy 1973a, 21Museums collect for display. Archivists, on the other hand, preserve for informational content of enduring value, must process their materials painstakingly by record group, keeping collections together in order to make them readily usable, and assist every patron to utilize the repository as thoroughly as possible.Lewellyn 1979, 30On some occasions, the archivist may hesitate to destroy a record but remains doubtful of its enduring value. The increasing costs of labor, space, and overhead must be weighed with cold brutality against the probabilities of use.Quinn 1982, 18Determining which records among the massive amount of documentation generated by academic institutions are of enduring value is perhaps the most vexing ongoing problem confronting academic archivists. Although Maynard Brichford, Nicholas Burckel, and others have addressed this problem, approaches to appraisal at various repositories are, on the whole, still exceedingly eclectic.Peterson 1984, 392There are distinctions between the way a data center and a data library and an archives handle information, and it is important that in one place the researcher can find the institution's records of enduring value, maintained as the creator created them, clearly identified as to the creator, and maintained whether or not they are actively in use for research. That is the role of the archives.Cox and Samuels 1988, 29Although these are important concerns, we are concentrating instead on the profession’s need to comprehend the nature of recorded information and develop and test techniques to identify records of enduring value.WWU 2010, 1University records having enduring (“permanent”) value, typically for historical purposes but also including legal or administrative purposes. When encoded within a state-approved retention schedule, the “archival” designation identifies a legal obligation to retain the records according to archival standards ensuring the records’ authenticity, integrity, preservation, and accessibility.Millar 2014, 107Archival institutions and traditional archival service are stubbornly physical in a world where physicality is becoming a liability, not an asset. As such, archival institutions risk becoming quaint reminders of an analog past, repositories of records valued for their historical allure as documentary symbols of a bygone age – accompanied by the enchanting smell of iron gall ink or the sensation of crumbling newsprint – more than for their enduring value as evidence.Cuervo 2015, 273The authors pick and choose what concepts to expand on and deliberately leave out such crucial matters as the meaning and implication of enduring value when discussing archival appraisal, or the importance of maintaining original order as a vital component of archival arrangement.
Notes
Archivists sometimes use “enduring value” in place of “permanent value” to indicate that their determinations of a record’s value (in other words, their appraisal decisions) may not indeed be permanent and that the record may be valuable for a long time, though not necessarily forever.
