Moving away from Jenkinson's organic and passive approach to archival acquisition, where the administrator decided what was kept and what was destroyed, Schellenberg argued for a more active approach by archivists to appraisal.
Odmičući se od Jenkinsonovog organičkog i pasivnog pristupa arhivskom prikupljanju podataka, gdje je administrator odlučivao o tome što će biti sačuvano a što uništeno, Shellenberg se zalagao za aktivniji pristup arhivista vrednovanju građe.