The Importance of Context for Digitized Archival Collections

Abstract

Archival theory and practice have evolved to ensure the evidential value of records. The context of a record is fundamentally important to this process. While the publication of selected archival documents has always posed problems, this is now greatly amplified in the digital age. This article investigates some of the possible consequences of a loss of context in digital collections and encourages archivists to develop advanced finding aids linking contextual information to digitized materials.