Archival Science as a Discipline Applied in the Field of Information Science

Abstract

Even though files have very remote origins that can be confused with those of writing, only during the Nineteenth Century and within the frame of historicism and positivism, archival studies started to position itself as a discipline with a perspective of “auxiliary science” in history. This historicist and custodial perspective acquired new boundaries close to the turn of the century, thanks to the assertion of the technicist current developed during the Twentieth Century, due to social, economic and cultural factors derived from the ongoing technological revolution. In this case, the traditional historicist, custodial and technicist paradigm of archival science is confronted with a new emerging paradigm, known as a post-custodial, informational and scientific paradigm that understands this discipline as an applied knowledge from the field of information science, and the epistemological, theoretical and methodological foundations of the approach proposed are presented.