Introduction

• This page provides a brief introduction to the theory and practice of archival arrangement.

Archival arrangement

Archival material is organized according to the principle of respect des fonds, also referred to as the principles of provenance and original order. This means material from a source (e.g., external donor, Office of Primary Responsibility) is organized into a fonds and kept separate from other fonds. It also means that archivists try to maintain the material in the same order as they were maintained by the records' creator.

In many cases, the original order of a fonds has been lost, corrupted, or not maintained. In such cases, archivists must determine the intellectual arrangement of a fonds through an analysis that assesses how the elements of a fonds combine to form levels of arrangement. Archivists typically “impose” an arrangement based on their understanding of the activities and functions of the creator of the material. The arrangement process can be very subjective, but archivists adhere to certain principles in order to standardize the process by which an arrangement structure is identified.