The Role Of Ethics In The American Archivists

The National Archives developed "The Archivist's Code" for intended use in the National Archives In-service Training Program and printed it in the American Archivist in 1955. It then served as a written guideline for archivists in America for many years. It provided reasonable regulations for professional judgments of archivists. In 1980, after further development, The Society for American Archivists approved the code into the first official code of ethics. More importantly, It is important for archivist to consider the historical and professional context of archival ethics, because ethics plays an important role in the selecting, transferring, and access of records for archivists, records managers, organizations and researchers, thus all
must work ethically when working with records of enduring value.