T. R. Schellenberg

T. R. Schellenberg
T. R. Schellenberg (left) with James L. Stapleton, State Librarian of Queensland, 1954
Born (1903-02-24)24 February 1903
Garden Township, Kansas, USA
Died 14 January 1970(1970-01-14) (aged 66)
Arlington, Virginia, USA
Nationality American
Education Tabor College (Kansas), University of Kansas, University of Pennsylvania
Occupation Archivist, Professor
Organization National Archives and Records Administration (USA)
Known for Assistant Archivist of the United States
The Appraisal of Modern Public Records
The Management of Archives

Theodore Roosevelt Schellenberg (24 February 1903 – 14 January 1970) was an American archivist and archival theorist. Schellenberg's publications and ideas are part of the foundation for archival theory and practice in the United States. In particular, Schellenberg is known for pioneering American archival ideas about appraisal.

Biography

Theodore Roosevelt Schellenberg was born on February 24, 1903 to Abraham Lawrence and Sarah Schroeder Schellenberg in Garden Township, Harvey County, Kansas. He attended Tabor College (1924–6) before transferring to the University of Kansas. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history in 1928. He continued his education, receiving his Master's in History from the University of Kansas in 1930 and his Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania in 1934.[1][2] That same year, he secured a position with the Joint Committee on Materials for Research as Executive Secretary, part of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council.[2]

Career

Schellenberg had a long career with the federal government working mostly in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In 1935, he gained his first position within NARA when he was appointed as a Deputy Examiner, part of a group of academics who were tasked with examining the records of executive agencies in Washington D.C.[2] He was appointed chief of the Division of Agriculture Department Archives in 1938. It was in this position that he published his first paper in 1939, European Archival Practices in Arranging Records, which laid the groundwork for his life’s work. In it, he observed that European methods only applied to U.S. records management in a limited way. Americans were creating documents at an unprecedented rate, and European archival practices did not adequately respond to the changing needs of American records management. Experiencing this issue firsthand during his work at NARA, Schellenberg's theory of the archives came from the practical need to adapt European archival practices to working with the massive scale of the federal records climate.[3][4]

Schellenberg briefly left NARA for three years at the close of WWII in 1945, when he took a job as a Records Officer in the Office of Price Administration. His work there illustrated the many difficulties found in managing vast amounts of government records, which only increased his commitment to finding solutions. In 1948, he returned to NARA as Program Advisor to the Archivist and published his first major work in 1949 called Disposition of Federal Records: How to Develop an Effective Program for the Preservation and Disposal of Federal Records.[2]

Schellenberg was promoted to Director of Archival Management in 1950 and served in that capacity until 1961. One of his first projects was to craft a rigorous training program for NARA employees, since there was inadequate standardization in his division’s policies and procedures. In addition, he created guidelines for how positions would be categorized and ensured that job descriptions were consistent. He continued to provide archival training throughout his tenure at NARA: at one point planning a two-semester course that was offered at the American University; organizing a series of symposiums for senior archivists; and finally, traveling to records centers throughout the U.S. in the late 1950s to provide three-day classes on archives management.[2] He also oversaw a massive reappraisal of documents to deaccession old records and enforced a methodology more selective in the appraisal of new records.

Influence

Schellenberg on appraisal

Schellenberg's major contribution to archival practice was to emphasize the centrality of appraisal in archival work, and to make selection a primary role of the archivist. To Schellenberg, a record has "primary value" to the creator as evidence of activities, but also has "secondary value" (i.e. evidential or informational value) to future users of the records outside of the originating agency, such as other agencies, historians, or private users.[3] He argued the most efficient way to deal with the sheer volume of records that archives were dealing with at the time was to differentiate between a record's primary and secondary value and, thus, determine the relative value of the records based on the secondary value of the records.[3] This differentiation was key for Schellenberg as he argued for a greater distinction between records and archives. In his definition, records only have current, primary value to their creators, but archives are records deemed to have significant secondary value by an archivist (i.e. meriting permanent preservation) outside of their original value to the record's creators. Consequently, records were under the purview of records managers, and only those records holding value for future users (particularly for future historical inquiry) would become a part of the archives.[3]

Modern Archives: Principles and Techniques

In 1954, Schellenberg was given the opportunity to travel to Australia through the Fulbright Program to assist Australians in creating an archival system suited to their archival issues.[5] He spent months helping address records management concerns through a lecture and seminar series that allowed him to travel throughout the continent and even to Tasmania and New Zealand. During this time, his lecture and seminar notes began to take the shape of a textbook on archival work and management practices.[2] In 1956, he published this work as the acclaimed text Modern Archives: Principles and Techniques—thus creating the first exhaustive American approach to archival administration.[2]

The book takes up emerging issues, concerns, and approaches to archival theory and practice that modern archivists encounter, thereby reflecting the desire for a closer and more efficient working relationship between records management and archival work and giving readers a broad overview of principles of public records management.[5] In responding to modern archival problems, particularly distinctly American archival concerns, the book also juxtaposes American archival work and theory with those of foreign countries to clarify the fundamental nature and methods of archives, records management, and archival management.[6]

Schellenberg's textbook was largely well received in the archival field, both in America and internationally, and quickly became a central text for students in archival training programs.[5] After the publication, historian and archivist Waldo Gifford Leland positively reviewed the text in the October 1956 issue of the American Archivist, stating: "This compact and well written book is, at least in the opinion of the reviewer, the most significant and useful statement yet produced on the administration of modern records and archives."[6] The following year Schellenberg won a meritorious service award to honor the contributions made to the archival profession through the textbook.[2]

Principal publications

  • Schellenberg, Theodore R. (1956). Modern Archives: Principles and Techniques. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1996 reprint online.
  • Schellenberg, Theodore R. (1965). The Management of Archives. New York: Columbia University Press. 1988 reprint online.

References

  1. ↑ "T. R. Schellenberg Papers
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith, Jane (Fall 1981). "Theodore R. Schellenberg: Americanizer and Popularizer". The American Archivist. 44 (4): 317.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Tschan, Reto (2002). "A Comparison of Jenkinson and Schellenberg on Appraisal". The American Archivist. 65: 176–195.
  4. ↑ Boles, Frank; Greene, Mark A. (Summer 1996). "Et Tu Schellenberg? Thoughts on the Dagger of American Appraisal Theory". American Archivist. 59: 298–310.
  5. 1 2 3 1903-1970., Schellenberg, T. R. (Theodore R.), (2003). Modern archives : principles & techniques. Jones, H. G. (Houston Gwynne), 1924-. Chicago: Society of American Archivists. ISBN 0931666024 Check |isbn= value: checksum (help). OCLC 54021415.
  6. 1 2 Leland, Waldo Gifford (October 1956). "Reviews of Books". The American Archivist. 19: 325–327.

Further reading

  • Tschan, Reto (2002). "A comparison of Jenkinson and Schellenberg on appraisal". The American Archivist. 65 (2): 176–195.
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