PRINCIPLES OF ARRANGEMENT/ RESPECT DES FONDS

Arrangement: The whole process of analyzing the organization of sets of archives, whereby their provenance and original order are understood and the archives are set into groups, series and items in an order that preserves and reflects that understanding.
The arrangement of archives is governed by the key principle of respect des fonds. Originally a French term, respect des fonds is often defined simply as ‘respect for the creator of the records.’
The principle of respect des fonds consists of two related concepts:
1. Provenance
2. Original order.

Provenance refers to the ‘office of origin’ of the materials;
The organization or individual that created or received, maintained and used records while they were still current.
Original order refers to the order and organisation in which the documents were created or stored by that office of origin.

Respect des fonds that need to be followed by the archivist to manage the records:
Do not combine the archives of two agencies or organizations.
Similarly, the private archives of different individuals must not be integrated, even if the individuals were related or experienced the same events.

-Do not rearrange archives that show a discernible original order.
-In particular, materials must not be ordered by subject, date or medium of material if that was not how they were organized when created.
-Identify levels of archives according to the hierarchical levels of arrangement used in archival work.
Group -> Sub-group -> Series -> File -> Items