The Nature of Records and Archives

The diplomatic and archival concept of records through time, in the analog as well as the digital environment; the characteristics of records (i.e. naturalness, interrelatedness, impartiality, authenticity, uniqueness) and their components, formal elements, and attributes; the trustworthiness of records (reliability, accuracy, authenticity, identity, and integrity) and authentication; the perfection of records (i.e. draft, original, copy, image); the way records aggregate and their forms of aggregation; the concept of archives (or archival fonds) and its history (including the concept of record group); the records tradition versus the manuscripts tradition in the United States; the concept of papers (differences between United States and United Kingdom); the structure of archival bodies of material; the macro approach versus the micro approach to the concept of archives; and archives as a place and as an institution.