Respect des Fonds
Updated 2026-08-03
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Respect des fonds is the archival principle that files must be kept in organic connection with the body that created them and in the order in which they were formed, rather than rearranged by subject or chronology at a later archivist's convenience. Its justification is that the context of a record, its origin and sequence, carries information as real as its text. The general lesson is that an isolated fact is unreliable: meaning survives only inside the chain of decisions and relationships that produced it.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Source binding: Keep each fact attached to who produced it and under what circumstances. - Order respect: Preserve the sequence in which records or events arrived rather than re-sorting by theme. - Context first: Rebuild the surrounding context before interpreting any isolated statement.
Anchor fast decisions
A record is evidence of two things at once: its content and the process that produced it. Sorting by subject or selecting by convenience destroys the second layer, which is often the only thing that reveals what the content meant, why it was said, and to whom it was addressed. Context is therefore not decoration on the fact but part of the fact, which is why stripping it converts a document into a misleading quotation.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect_des_fondsverified
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