Appraisal and Selection of Audiovisual Documents in the Focus of Foreign Historiography

The purpose of this article is to analyze the state of development of the main theoretical-methodological and practical principles of appraisal and selection of audiovisual documents in modern foreign (North American) historiography, to determine their problems and further prospects for study. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism, systematicity, objectivity with the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, abstraction and generalization; historiographical (specific-historiographical analysis and synthesis), historical (comparative-historical and chronological) methods. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the article is the first attempt at historiographical reflection on the apprisal and selection of audiovisual documents (moving images) in modern North American archival thought. The conclusions are formulated that over the past forty years in the North American archival discourse, there has been an increase of interest in the appraisal and selection of audiovisual documents, which has grown into the formation of an independent research direction, as evidenced by the scientific achievements of Canadian and American archivists. In comparison with the ideas of American specialists, the originality and value of Canadian thinking is recognized, it consists in its ability to synthesize a number of appraisal methods (European and American), apply in practice and experiment with proposed models of criteria of the value of film and video documents not only at the level of state archives, but also archival departments of television and radio broadcasting companies. In general, the raised problem is quite complex and requires further study. In this context, it is considered relevant to study the European tradition of appraisal and selection of film and video documents, its influence on the past and current archival policies of acquisition of these documents. Attention is focused on the expediency of elucidating the peculiarities of the assessment and selection of audio and photo documents both in terms of individual national traditions and in the international perspective in particular.