The Substitution Principle Of Archives Based On The Function Of Saving History

Archive is fixed information with clear and certain original record function, which directly formed in social organizations or individuals’social practice of the past. In principle, taking the definition and the essential attribute of archives as the criterion, we can affirm the connotation and denotation of archive in a breeze. In practice, archive is often confused with similar concepts to some extent. It is shown as: for one thing, many documents, objects are taken care of as archives in the archives, which don’t conform to the definition and essential attribute of archive. For another, those documents and objects are considered to be archives by some scholars. This is obviously unreasonable based on the existing theory of archival science. So, how to solve this problem? At present, typical view is widening the definition of archive, letting the similar concepts bring into the scope of archive. In my opinion, it will bring a bigger mess to the theory and practice. We have to find a new path to resolve the contradiction between theory and practice. On this basis, I propose the substitution principle of archives based on the function of saving history. It means that archives have substitutes, which can replace archives to save history when they are incomplete or missing. The documents and objects that confused with archive easily, and don’t conform to the definition and essential attribute of archive, we can call them "the analogue of archive". The analogue of archive is the substitute for archives."The view of Substitutes" distinguishes the analogue of archive with the archive, clears the relationship between the two, draws a distinct conceptual category of archive, and bridgings the conflict between theory and practice. Substitution means A replaced by B, and B will take the role of A. The analogue of archive and the archive has the function of saving history at the same time, so the former can substitute the latter. Saving history is the fundamental function of the archive, and the highest mission of archives. When recording an important practice’s archive is incomplete or missing, in order to accomplish their mission, archives will seek the closest to archive’s document or object to bring history alive instead of archive. Because of this theory, many "special" phenomena in the practice are to be explained. Oral archives aren’t directly formed in the activities that they record, so they can’t be affirmed as the archives of that activities. But their retention is according to archive in many archives including Yangzhou Archives. The reason is that oral archives base on the memory of the parties to the event, with high accuracy, and they can review the event instead of archive. The measured materials are formed after the event as well. They can’t be counted as the archives of measured objects, but they are kept in science and technology archives as science and technology archives. This is due to the measured materials based on scientific measurements, which have high reliability. So they can be the substitutes of archives. The information that physical archives convey isn’t clear and definite, so they’re not archives. But they still appear in the archives with the identity of archive. It is also due to the physical archives are directly from the event they record, and have high credibility. They can instead of archive to save history when the archive is incomplete or missing. In addition, there’re a lot of substitutes of archives with different forms and varieties, which widely exist in the archives preservation institutions. The archivists should have a correct understanding of the role of archive and its substitutes, put first thing first, and plan the collection reasonably.