The Four Paradigms of Archival History and the Challenges of the Future
Iván Székely · Advances in public policy and administration (APPA) book series · 2015
In the multi-millennial history of archives four successive paradigms can be distinguished. In the archival systems that can be designated respectively as entitlement-attestation, national, public, and global ones, their primary or new objectives, key institutions, specialists and target audience as well as applied information technologies and characteristic problems show significant differences. Alongside enduring elements of continuity new key features, functions and impacts appear, which together fundamentally change the actual role and ideology of archives. With an information-centered approach, this study attempts to include the most important characteristics of these respective archival paradigms in one coherent system, with a brief overview of the challenges the archives of the future may face.