Provenance in the context of archives means the source from which material is received, for example, a person, a group, an institution or a company. The word is also user about records of ownership for a book or a work of art.

"The principle of provenance", "respects des fonds" or "principle of original order" are well-established principles for organizing archival documents. The basic idea is that records should not be split op after subject, but remain in the order in which they were originally created.

The principle of provenance is one among many principles of ordering. In more than hundred years has it been the accepted foundation for ordering in governmental

archives. (Its status may, however, be challenged in digital age).

Literature:

Abukhanfusa, K. & Sydbeck (Eds.). (1994). The principle of provenance: Report from the first Stockholm conference on Archival theory and the Principle of Provinance. Stockholm, 2-3 september, 1993. Stockholm: Svenska Riksarkivet.

Hertz, M. (1984-1985). Proviniensprincippets forståelse. Arkiv. Tidsskrift for arkiv­forskning. Bd. 10, 107-121.

Lynch, C. A. (2001). When documents deceive: Trust and provenance as new factors for information retrieval in a tangled Web. Journal of The American Society for Information Science and Technology, 52(1), 12-17.
 

Lytle, R. H. (1980). Intellectual access to archives. 1: Provenance and content indexing.  Methods of subject retrieval. American Archivist, 43(1), 64-75. 

Lytle, R. H. (1980).  Intellectual access to archives. 2: Report of an experiment comparing provenance and content indexing methods of subject retrieval. American Archivist, 43(2), 191-307.

National Register of Archives and Manuscripts (NRAM). Provenance.  http://www.nram.org.nz/howtocontribute/provenance.php

Nesmith, T. C. (1992). Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance.Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2005). Provenance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance

Winget, M. (2004). The Archival Principle of Provenance and Its Application to Image Representation Systems. http://www.unc.edu/~winget/research/provenance.pdf

See also: Archive; Order (Core Concepts in LIS)

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 21-07-2006

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to be edited:

 Hertz (1984/85) forklarer princippet: "[Proviniens] betyder oprindelse, herkomst, afstamning. Det har været benyttet om varer i international varerhandel og om planter og frøsorter i forbindelse med planteavl og forstvirksomhed men er ellers ikke meget anvendt. Blandt arkivfolk slog ordet an i årene omkring århundredeskiftet og blev endeligt stadfæstet ved den internationale arkivkongres i 1910 i Bruxelles. Her betegner ordet proviniens den person eller den institution hos hvem dokumenter­ne - arkivalierne - er blevet opsamlet. Proviniensen til et afsendt og modtaget brev er således ikke afsenderen, men modtageren, der opbevarer det. Det såkaldte proviniensprincip går altså ud på, at arkiverne skal ordne deres arkivalier sådan, at man kan se, hvilke personer eller institutioner de er opsamlet hos. Anerkendelsen af dette princip kom til at præcisere (og undertiden til at ændre) opfattelsen af de opgaver, et arkiv skal løse".