Biologiskt material som records

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the challenges of considering biological material as records and how its evidential value can be understood. In addition, it examines how the view of evidential value of biomaterial can be transferred to digital material. This is done by interviewing people who work with biological material professionally, thereby using their experience and expertise on the subject matter. The thesis is based on a qualitative approach with focus groups and individual interviews as a collection method for the empirical material. The results are interpreted using the theoretical starting point for how central concepts are defined and how biological material could fit with these and could be understood as records, in order to understand biomaterial from an archival scientific perspective. The result shows that biological material can be a source for both information and evidence, as well as evidence of activities. Furthermore, that the handling and the documentation, and thus the trustworthiness, of the biomaterial is of great importance for its evidential value. The result also implicates that the traditional notions of records is only to some extent applicable when considering biological material as records. Thus, one of the main challenges is the trait of being non-textual.