Archive quality only survives unimpaired so long as their natural form and relationship are maintained. This evidential value is in contrast to the value of information contained in individual record items. A basic approach in evaluating records produced by public bodies is to retain those that show the functioning of such bodies. When sound archival principles are followed, selected records are retained office by office, activity by activity without fusion of files and no creation of new files. Before the principle of provenance, archivists arranged records by subject that were originally brought together in relation to action.
Official historians are guilty of placing documents in historic arrangements.
However, records brought together by subject are at the mercy of terminology, without uniformity subjects varied from one agency to another. All records must be viewed before a subject arrangement could be chosen with finality. Provenance is often destroyed before records reach an archive. If rearranged, do so to emphasize organizational origins. The principle of provenance is basic and inflexible and speaks to the integrity of the archives.