Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)
3. Session / Séance. Sharing of Experience and Exchange of Staff / Partage d’Expériences et Echange des Personnes - Huyda, Richard: Coordination Research in Archival Sience and Dissemination of Professional Information / Coordination de la recherche en archivistique et diffusion de l’information professionnelle (english 231 - français 251)
research proceeds mainly by deduction, applied research favours induction instead7. 4. Moreover, applied research contributes just as much as theoretical research does to the advancement of knowledge. As Robert Garon argues: ... In fact, the greatest advances of humanity seem to have involved, not organized research or systematic reflection, but the accumulation of experience in controlling the natural elements, the impact of work, and the transmission of increasingly complex and subtle messages8. Returning to our opening questions, we would say that the expression, „research in archival science“, thus applies to any attempt to push back the frontiers of knowledge in this field of expertise, which also corresponds to a field of action. To paraphrase Birgit Dankert, it is made up of a „mixture of intuition, experimentation, analysis, interpretation and theory“9. Its basic objective is as much to resolve practical problems as it is to formulate theoretical principles, and it is scientific to the extent that study of its specific subject matter relies on methods that are defined and based on verifiable and objective relationships. This specific subject matter corresponds to this field of knowledge and its sphere of application which constitutes our organic recorded information. Forms and methods of research What then are the formal and structural qualities of research in archival science, and to what methodological procedures do they give rise? If we go back once more to the subject of this research, namely archival science, most North American archivists who accept its scientific credentials describe it primarily as an applied science10 *. However, they are prepared to recognize the existence of theoretical archival science, though they often view this as at the embryonic stage and would want it to flourish through intensified research at the university level". A number of them also emphasize its ancillary and complementary qualities, in other words essentially at the service of and complementary to the historical and administrative sciences12. Finally, some see it as a science typified by a confluence of varied influences existing on theconfines of such other disciplines as information sciences generally, and computer and, administration sciences in particular13. 3. Session/Séance: Marcoux - Huyda, Coordinating Research in archivai Science 7 Stephenson, Mary Sue: Deciding not to build the wall: research and the archival profession, in: Archivaria 32 (1991), p. 149 seqq. Garon, Robert: L’importance de la recherche en archivistique, in: Symposium en archivistique (GIRA), 1990, p. 18. 9 Dankert, Birgit: Research and education in school librarianship, in: Education and research in library and information science in the information age: means of modem technology and manage- ment/Proceedings of the IFLA/China Society of Library Science Seminar/Beijing, September 1-5, 1986. München 1988, p. 13. Lopez, Pedro: Archival Training: Specialists and/or Generalists, in: Papers of the Xllth International Congress on Archives, Montréal 1992. Grimard, Jacques: Université Laval, les programmes de formation en archivistique, in: Archives 20 (1989) n° 3, p. 14 and 17. 12 Garon: L’importance de la recherche (see note 8), p. 19—21. 13 Ibi dem, p. 22. 233
