Respect des fonds is an archival principle stating that records created, accumulated, and/or maintained and used by an individual or corporate body should not be kept in their original order.

Respecting the office of the origin of the records by maintaining the order that the records were kept in the office where they originated from

The order in which documents were recreated, rearranged, and maintained by the office of origin

The fundamental archival principle that no subset of a creator's archival records should be attached to the whole or separated from the records of other creators