word of the day: fonds

word of the day: fonds

context: 

“We cannot save the whole world, so we save that part of it we assess as essential. The process of appraisal usually encompasses multiple fonds or subfonds, so we are always creating a collection of records, even if that collection consists of records from the same central fonds. In a manuscripts environment, this is even more so the case, yet the collection we create out of various manuscript collections functions best when the records have conceptual connections between them.”

definition (Dictionary of Archives Terminology): the entire body of records of an organization, family, or individual that have been created and accumulated as the result of an organic process reflecting the functions of the creator

I knew Geof Huth as a poet, but he is also a professional archivist for New York City courts. Having now read The Anarchivist, Huth’s essays on archival theory, I have a better idea of what he does in his day job. Archives are storage facilities for records, but archivists like Huth want their mess of data to be useful, so they do their best to clean them up and keep them organized so researchers, writers, journalists aren’t just faced with dusty boxes and catawampus piles and mouse-chewed bundles. 

This was the first time I encountered an archivist term of art: fonds. When seeking a definition you have to make sure you include the “s” at the end, otherwise you wander down trails wholly unrelated. An archivist could be fond of his fonds, I suppose, but fondness and fondsness do not seem to be related. 

One of the examples given for a fonds at Wikipedia: “the writings of a poet that were never published”

I have serious fonds, it seems. 

source:

The Anarchivist: history, memory, and archives

by Geof Huth 

2020. AC Books, New York