Respect des fonds

Respect des fonds, or le respect pour les fonds, is a principle in archival theory that proposes to group collections of archival records according to their fonds – that is to say, according to the administration, organization, individual, or entity by which they were created or from which they were received. This principle has largely guided how archival materials are arranged and described in late-19th and 20th century archives. The theory posits that ordering groups of records by creatorship provides authenticity and context by evidencing the relationships between records and better manifesting the environment of their creation.