Answers.com defines Archival Science as: The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives.
*shudder*

I am trying to figure out the definition of Archival Science for a paper I am writing to be submitted to one of the big journals. Me being me I am not happy simply to appropriate someone else's definition, but I feel I need to include some explanation of what I think personally. I need to put forward an argument.
Anyway, the more I read into what people think Archival Science means, the more the term itself upsets me. I have been finding myself more and more turning to the word 'Archivistics' to define what I consider is my profession.
I have been struggling with Archival Science primarily because of that word Science in the title - what exactly does it mean? When I think i science I think of people conducting experiments and having loads of data that streams out of a computer and looks like nonsense. I keep thinking that Anthropology is a discipline without science in its name - although some might suggest that it is without science at all. And there is the problem - the idea that social science is as valuable as any other science. And who determines values then?

Psychology conducts experiments but does not have to have 'science' in its name. Psychology, I would suggest, sits a fence in which one leg loosely hangs in the positivist realm with repeatable experiments, quantifiable data and so on and the other leg kicks out into the interpretive like a reflex, almost unknowingly. I have not read a lot of psychology research, so I am making this judgement up, but it does highlight to me the ideal or importance of science-y kinds of research - as if it is more valid. I think hiding the subjective nature of research is damaging, but that is just me.

So, back again to Archival Science. When writing this definition I am looking at the Records Continuum model and Frank's explanation in the text, Archives: Recordkeeping in Society - "Recordkeeping objects are marked out by their processes of formation and continuing formations, not by their intrinsic nature." (page 206).

Another definition of Archival Science:
A systematic body of theory that supports the practice of appraising, acquiring, authenticating, preserving, and providing access to recorded materials.http://www.archivists.org/glossary/term_details.asp?DefinitionKey=1814

This one is interesting to me. I like the use of the word 'recorded', but not sure about materials as it sounds very physical world to me. I also raise an eyebrow at the word 'systematic' and its use with 'body of theory'. Is the theory systematic or the organisation of it? Why use systematic at all? Does it have a special significance to Archival Science because it implies that all Archival Scientists are well organised? I like the inclusion of all those good verbs in there - this also strikes me as something that is creating an identity myth as well. I am not entirely convinced that Archival Science is really just about the theory and practice of appraising, acquiring, authenticating, preserving, and providing access. Why not the creation, capture, organisation and pluralisation of records? I guess the final issue I have with this definition is that I am not entirely sure what 'study' actually means. Studying records (or recorded materials) or the processes behind the verbs mentioned above, or both?

Can study mean philosophy, paradigm, principles? I like to use the word assumptions. The identity the SAA has wrapped up about Archival Science in this definition is an assumption. The use of those particular verbs are through assumption.

My other favourite word of the minute is, 'expectation'. I have been talking about it in relation to email management and business requirements, but I think it is also relevant to a definition of Archival Science. The expectations and assumptions of Archival Science are what makes it Archival Science. Perhaps I am really trying to define Archival Science research?

Anyway, I came up with a definition of Archival Science (with a caveat) which I have used in my paper. This is the second draft of the definition and I have borrowed concepts from Eric Ketelaar...
Archival Science is:
a field of study concerned with recorded information that includes the practitioners in the field, as well as the assumptions that drive the practice.