Archival Science

As Derrida stated, “Archives affirms the past, present and the future; it preserves the records of the past and it embodies the promise of the present to the future.” The standard dictionary definition of the word archive is, “a place where documents and other materials.” In some usual cases, the word archive pertains to the “contents of museums, libraries, and archives and thus the entire extant historical record;” this definition is the reason why there is an arising confusion between the three terms. Distinctions between libraries, archives and museums have always been ambiguous as argued by Robert Martin. Plus the digital environment of archive has worn these distinctions.

Archives played a huge role in both political world and cultural world. It has always been a tool in every ethnic struggle and exploration of one’s history. Archives have given an immense contribution to the fields of anthropology, classics, history, literature and contemporary visual artist as well. The term archivization is the result of Derrida’s valuable contributions in his explanation of the concept that the structure of the archive determines what can be archived and that history and memory are formed by the technical methods.

“Archiving also entails selecting what should and what should be kept,” as aid by Eric Ketelaar. Memory of man and society cannot retain everything. It can only remember few and forget a lot especially the details. Records and archives are functional in which its mere presence aids in collective memory. Archivist is the boundary keeper and he decides as to what is contextual and meaningful.

Archives exhibit a narrative aspect in social, political and cultural contexts. Cultural and social factors influences people to create, process, appraise and use archives consciously or unconsciously. Social, cultural, political, economic and religious contexts determine the tacit narratives of the archive.

There is also a stress in archive’s powerful feature. Archive has repository of meanings, the multilayered, multifaceted meaning hidden in archivalization and archiving, which can be deconstructed and reconstructed, then interpreted by scholars, over and over again.

Archives distinct traces can be found in 16th century. But it is not yet characterized as science; it’s just mere practical collection of experiences and technical details, originating from outside of the university that is transmitted on a highly elevated level of abstraction. There are already attempted definitions and methodological methods and terms describing the record keeping itself developed and evolved in different places as archivwissenschaft, archivista, archival science, archivistique.

German Jakob von Rammingen (1571), Italians Balthasar Bonifacius (1632) and Alberto Barisoni (between 1619 and 1636) correlate the striking manner to the evolution of modern science in 1600. New conceptualization of science was a result of the beginning activities regarding theory and practical aspects. Concrete causes are the differentiation of the organization of administration, the increase in literacy, centralization of archives. It is the birth to the concept of modern archives was established in Spain on August 24, 1588 by royal mandate of Philip II for the new central archives in Simancas. As related to our history, this was the period of Spanish colonization in our country.

Robert Henri Bautier on the first phase of the evolution of archives addressed it as the “phase crucial” - archival science is characterized by the legal and administrative task of the archives,