Cultural Paradigm Of Archival Studies

Culture is the spirit of a nation. Archive is a cultural phenomenon. Archives cultureis consisted of archival work practice, archival legal regulations and public archivalawareness, all of which are centered on archive work. Recently, Kuhn’s paradigm isdrawing more and more attention while crossing natural sciences and being widely usedin various disciplines. This paper analyses archives culture in perspective of scientificparadigm, trying to have an organic combination of “paradigm” and “culture”. This isundoubtedly a new attempt as well as one of the accesses to further study on archivesculture. British philosopher McIntyre believes that development of culture should andcan only be explained by example (paradigm). In other words, every culture has ahidden dominant paradigm, so does the archives culture. This paper aims to seekidentification of relative ideas about archives culture by defining the content andfunctions of archives culture paradigm, thus enriching the opinions about archivesculture. By sorting out the features and performances of archives culture paradigm indifferent periods, this paper digs out the factors that affect the transformation ofarchives culture paradigm, analyses the interrelationship between these factors andgrasp the mechanisms and regulations of paradigm transitions. On the basis of knowingthese mechanisms and regulations, the author investigates some social practices that areclosely connected with archives management and analyses the current situation ofpublic awareness of archives culture, making cogitation of the transition of archivesculture in information age. By doing so, the author hopes to provide references for thedevelopment of archives culture in the future.