Articles

Understanding the Machine Readable Numeric Method: Archival Challenges with Some Comments on Appraisal Guidelines

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Abstract

Quantitative social research has been considered necessary to understand the nature of our past and present society and its problems, carry out the research process, and understand the impact of social programs. For almost two centuries, social researchers have utilized governmental statistics to examine a wide range of social phenomena on individuals and social structures and to offer competing analyses of social research and policy. As early as 1828, Melchiorre Gioja, in his, Filosfia della Statistica, indicated that the essential scope of social science also embraced the collection of data on a wide range of social phenomena, such as affluence, poverty, knowledge, ignorance, happiness, civilization, and morality, "the set of data relative to a country, which in the daily conduct of affairs, can be useful to each one or to the majority of its citizens, or to its government, which is their agent, delegate, or representative..." In the late nineteenth century, Durkheim relied on published summaries of statistical data to illuminate the causes of suicide. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, technological and intellectual advances have made possible the recording of these statistics in machine readable form, the collection of new types of data, and increased utilization of governmental records.

How to Cite:

Robbin, A., (1979) “Understanding the Machine Readable Numeric Method: Archival Challenges with Some Comments on Appraisal Guidelines”, Archival Issues 4(1), 5–24. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/archivalissues.8038