Sentencing Acts: Appraisal of court records in Canada and Australia

In archival theory and practice, sentencing is the process of identifying and classifying information, potentially resulting in its destruction. It is a surprising homonym to judicial pronouncement of criminal punishment, despite the emotive association with censorship and book burning. In archival science, as in law, sentencing is the result of evaluative judgment. In the case of archival science, these judgments about historical and social value, institutional accountability and resourcing have a powerful impact on social memory because they determine which ‘creators, functions, and activities in society will be represented in archive