| | Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford |
 | | Even if the set of records is the result of a private collector who ultimately offered his or her collection to an archival repository, the description of the records should focus as much on the aims, means, and nature of the collecting process as on the content and nature of the documents assembled. |
 | | Even the acquiring of records, in an otherwise successful appraisal process, leads to some destruction of the records as they are removed from their context of creation and use to the different environment of the archives (a loss that archival description tries to compensate for). |
 | | Alchemy does not appear, it seems, to be considerably different from what many archivists have been doing when they appraise or acquire records (even if the acquisition of records involves no more than accepting anything offered or buckling under political pressure to accept certain records). |
| www.hfmgv.org /research/publications/symposium2002/papers/cox.asp |