ARCHIVAL STRATEGIES

In 1989, David Bearman published an essay entitled Archival Methods, i n which he argued that traditional methods employed in archives for ap praisal, description, preservation, and access to records would fail t o meet already identified archival needs because the extent of known d emands exceeded the capacity of the profession by more than an order o f magnitude in each case, In response to a shortfall of this degree, h e argued, the profession needed to invent new approaches or redefine i ts problems. In this paper, Bearman defines strategic approaches to ac hieving the archival mission given that assessment of our requirements and methods, He then reviews some efforts that have been made in arch ives worldwide in recent years to redefine archival methods along thes e lines. Finally, he suggests some radical strategies as yet untried t hat could also contribute, along with those being tested now? to a rev olution in archival methods.