Streszczenie artykułu w języku angielskim:

 "Wiesława K w i a t k o w s k a , Future generations — what can and what should they know about our times.

Cultural aspects of documentation selection. The article attempts to demonstrate the effects of documentation

selection made by state archives. In order to do this, the paper conducts an analysis of

example lists of records from the years 1994–2007, prepared for offices of combined government administration

in the voivodship, commune and intercommunal union bodies, state archives, labour offices,

banks, insurance companies, hospitals, cultural institutions (libraries, museums). The analysis showed

that the documentation selection performed in the last decades is based on explicit and consistently met

criteria. They prefer the documentation relating to the operation of bureaucratized structures, and they

have no attention to everyday human and social issues which form our everyday lives. We leave for the

next generations synthetic and general materials, which are a final result of some activities carried out,

while we destroy all the initial sources which document the way leading to these generalizations. In the

assessment of archivists, detailed case records do not deserve preservation. People’s applications with

interesting justifications, ways their cases were solved, justifications of decisions made will all disappear.

The operation of institutions will be known based on pure numbers and comprehensive studies, not

saying anything about particular situations and people they related to.

The criteria of selection and valuation of records are totally independent from current trends of historic

research. A modern research query for a historical study focuses on humans, their relations with

the closer and further environment, life goals, values and beliefs. It is quite easy to show the causes of

such a state. In practice, valuation criteria that were current in the age of studying mass phenomena,

great people and important events are still used. This approach changes. Currently, the all-dominant

belief of absolute character of the „scientific” knowledge is currently vanishing. The science returns to

culture. It is time to reach conclusions based on this transformation. They should both concern a new

formulation of objectives and tasks of the archive studies, as well as more practical issues: research questionnaire

which would be recommended to young adepts of science or archivists."

Źródło: Archeion, t. 112