Abstract

The focus of archives is shifting from storage to access. This shift changes fundamentally the views of archival thinking and of the difference between past and future. Archivists become specialists who provide means for the use of time, and do not just offer past times themselves. The author argues that the access paradigm reinforces the theoretical challenges as well as the pragmatic implementation of archival methods and ideas. She discusses the consequences for archival theory and for the methodologies of description, appraisal and preservation.