Research On Archival Thoughts And Contributions Of Richard J.Cox

The higher education of archival science in the United States occupies a leading position in the world,and the leading figures of this subject have made important contributions.Richard J.Cox,both as one of the first full-time teachers of the archival science in American Universities and the first tenured professor in the same field,is very famous in the archival realm of North America,playing an important role in contemporary archival education and archival research and practice in the U.S..However,,the archival community of our country had little attention to Cox,even many people have never heard of him.Moreover,although some of the existing research results involve some aspects of Cox's archival ideas,they lack systematic research.This year marks the occasion of his retirement,and a systematic research on archival thoughts and contributions will be of great significance to the archival realm,but also salute those archival educators like Cox.Therefore,this thesis is the first time to conduct a systematic research on Richard J.Cox,based on the comprehensive use of literature review method,comparative research method and historical research method,elaborating and analyzing Cox's life experience,archival ideas and his contributions to the archival undertaking.Also,the thesis sums up the significant enlightenment to China's archival science education and the archivists from the research of this topic.In addition to the preface and conclusion,the main body of the paper consists of four chapters:Chapter 2 Combs the life experience of Cox,including his growing experience,education background and working experience.This part mainly takes the time as the axis,elaborating Cox's life experience with the narrative way and paying more attention on his working experience.Chapter 3 discusses Cox's main archival thoughts,which include thoughts of archival appraisal,archival education and archival ethics,and the background of these ideas as well.The three aspects are Cox's most important and representative thoughts in the field of archival science,which penetrate most of his studies.Chapter 4 sums up and expounds the overall contributions of Cox to the American archival undertaking,which mainly embodied in his contributions on the higher education of American archival science,the study of American archival history and the development of archival profession in the new era.As a summative revelation,chapter 5 sums up the revelation with reference value to the archival education of our country and archivists from the research on Cox.