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Methodological approach in collecting science archives: the ‘metaprotocole’

par Devriese, Didier
Référence Working with knowledge(6-7 mai 1998: Melbourne), Working with knowledge - International Archives Conference papers, Australian Academy of Science & Australian Science Archives Project, Melbourne
Publication Publié, 1998

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Résumé :

"Methodological approach view on collecting science archives: the « metaprotocole » as new point of view". Over the last two decades, archivists who are dealing with scientific archives have had to face up to rather radical changes of their surroundings: the archival world and the laboratories. The highlighted difficulties are generally attributed to the modification of scientific know-how process on the one hand, and to alterations to the preservation and diffusion methods of this know-how on the other hand. These technical changes are often assimilated to the generalisation of computer techniques and the resulting development of electronic communication. For some time, the primary question connected to those modifications seemed to be the one about the preservation of the data of those “new archives”, and the support on which it is stored. However, the managers of the information and the archivists have worked out technical solutions in order to resolve the preservation of electronic documents. Several problems are outstanding, as there are : the matter of the authenticity of the documents, the technical problems related to the objects of the laboratories, the databases, and so on. Yet, the main difficulty is situated elsewhere … Many historians, sociologists and philosophers of science have proved it necessary to penetrate into the interior of the laboratory in order to comprehend the activity : the scientific know-how is not a “neutral” one, it is subject to its fabrication process. Gradually, the archivists have adopted this way of proceeding. It seems clear to us that the major problem consists in understanding how today’s science functions. The question “how can we study the scientific phenomenon if we are not even able to put together the documentary tracks it produces ?” can be inverted to a different question :”how can we assemble the tracks of an activity of which we do not understand the elaboration process ?”. An overall understanding of the scientific activity and its institutional and social aspects is to be developed. If we fail to carry through this double action, we will end up with archival units of which we will have lost the context of the production. The units will thus have lost all meaning and will have become virtually useless. The management and use of today’s and tomorrow’s scientific archives mostly depend on whether or not we will be able to familiarise ourselves with those interdisciplinary actions, adapt them to the classical treatment of archives and integrate them in the continuum record process. In this point of view, a close link will appear between archivals methods applied in the Australian Science Archives Project and lessons coming from modern philosophy and history of contemporary sciences