Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Recent research in epistemology has led us to view science in a radically different perspective. Given the fact that sociologists of science are seeking to redefine the role of the document in the laboratory and that the notion of document itself has been undergoing a considerable evolution, one can easily understand the archivists’ interest in the issue. These new insights inevitably lead them to reconsider the collection and processing of archive records resulting from contemporary scientific research and research management.The need has already been underscored of penetrating the world of the laboratory in order to gain insight into the new types of documents, and of developing appropriate approaches in the archivists’ procedures. This, in turn, raises the issue of the locus where scientific records are collected : how can archivists be sure to cover the full range of present-day scientific production ? Even if they agree to radically restrict their scope, they must first gain awareness of the scientific phenomenon as a whole, last entire sectors of its documentary production should be overlooked. From this viewpoint, the criteria commonly applied so far aapear as all too restrictive; hence the need to broaden the range of disciplines involved, and to extend coverage to commonly neglected loci of production like, e.g. resarch projects carried out by groups of students and researchers during laboratory exercices. |
