The Dutch Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives by S. Muller, J. Feith and R. Fruin from 1898 and its later editions

Abstract

The Dutch Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives by S. Muller, J. Feith and R. Fruin, published in 1898, is one of the most groundbreaking publications in the history of archival science. The book, as one of the first in the world, provides detailed guidelines on the organization of archives and the work of archivists, and its authors aimed to unify the rules prevailing in European archives. Thanks to its translations into foreign languages, the textbook aroused wide interest outside the Netherlands and sparked a discussion on the validity of applying the principle of provenance in the archives. Ultimately, it also became the driving force for its adoption by most European archives, as evidenced by the resolution on this matter adopted at the 1st International Congress of Archivists and Librarians in Brussels in 1910. The article answers questions about the historical context of writing the manual, what motives guided the authors when writing individual chapters and what was the course of the editorial work. The rest of the text presents and analyzes the content presented in the book. The last part of the article is a brief overview of the context of the individual editions of the manual and a list of its translations into foreign languages.