Archival description: Content and context in search of structure

Journal of Internet Cataloging

Volumn 4, Issue 3-4, 2001, Pages 7-26

  Haworth, Kent M ^a  

^a YORK UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

APPM; Archival description; Archival descriptive standards; EAD; Encoded Archival Description; Finding aids; ISAD(G); Multilevel description; RAD

Indexed keywords

EID: 33746166878     PISSN: 10911367     EISSN: 15287017     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J141v04n03_02     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Liv Mykland. "Protection and Integrity, The Archivist's Identity and Professionalism, " paper presented to the XIIth International Congress on Archives (Montreal, 1992), 4.
2. "All else in the archival world, except appraisal, " Rich Berner claims "is a matter of philosophy and attitude, or is part of a body of theory from another field. " Archival theory and practice in the United States; A Historical Analysis (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983), 5.
3. Hilary Jenkinson. A Manual of Archive Administration (London: Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Limited, 1965), 12.
4. Hilary Jenkinson. A Manual of Archive Administration (London: Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Limited, 1965), 12.
5. Most Canadian, Australian, and European archivists make a distinction between an "archive" (known in French as a "fonds" or "archief in other European languages) and a collection, which may be considered an "artificial assemblage of documents accumulated on the basis of some common characteristic without regard to the provenance of those documents. Not to be confused with an "archival fonds. " See Judith Ellis, editor, Keeping Archives, 2nd edition (Australia: Australian Society of Archivists, Inc., 1993), 4.
6. Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1990), rule 0.1, fn.
7. and ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description (Stockholm: International Council of Archives, 1999), Glossary. Manuscript curators and archivists in the United Slates have not made this distinction in their descriptive practices and most often use the term "collection" to refer to both archives (a fonds or archief) and collections. In this paper, for the benefit of an American audience, a "collection" may be used interchangeably with the term "archive" or "fonds" when referring to the highest unit of description in a multilevel descriptive unit.
8. Ellis, Keeping Archives, 223.
9. Hugo Stibbe, "Standardizing Description: The Experience of Using ISAD(G), " Janus 1 (1998): 132-133.
10. See particularly Archivaria 34 (Summer 1992).
11. And Archivaria, 35 (Spring 1993), which devote several articles to the subject of archival description from a variety of national perspectives.
12. Luciana Duranti provides an analysis of several definitions of archival description, noting that these definitions can be associated with "(1) a process of analysis, identification and organisation; (2) purposes of control, retrieval and acccss; and (3) a final product which illustrates archival material, its provenancial and documentary context, its interrelationships and the ways it can be identified and used. " "Origin and Development of the Concept of Archival Description, " Archivaria 35 (Spring 1993): 47-48.
13. Kent M. Haworth. "Standardizing Archival Description in the Information Age, " paper presented to the XIIth International Congress on Archives (Montreal, 1992). 2.
14. Sec also Toward Descriptive Standards, Report and recommendations of the Canadian working group on archival descriptive standards (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1985), 9: "Description is a major function in the processing of archival materials, and the products of this function are finding aids of various sorts which give administrators control over their holdings and enable users and archivists to find information about particular topics. "
15. Michael Cook, The Management of Information from Archives (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), p. 80.
16. Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992). Glossary. D-6.
17. For a more thorough explanation of the relationship of archival arrangement to the description of archival materials see Heather MacNeil, "The Context Is All: Describing a Fonds and Its Parts in Accordance with the Rides for Archival Description" in Terry Eastwood, Editor, The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992), 205-213.
18. Hugo Stibbe, "Standardizing Description: The Experience of Using ISAD(G), " Janus 1 (1998): 136.
19. Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992). Glossary, D-5.
20. See ISAD(G), 2: Multilevel description rules, at http://www.archives.ca/ica/ CDS/isadg(e).html.
21. ISAD(G), Appendix A2.
22. Steven L. Hensen, Archives, Personal Papers and Manuscripts: A Cataloging Manual for Archival Repositories, Historical Societies, and Manuscript Libraries (Washington, DC: 1983).
23. See the exchange between Steven Hansen and Heather MacNeil regarding the adequacy of the rules in APPM to construct a multilevel description in Archivaria. Number 31 (Winter 1990-91). pp. 5-9.
24. Kent M. Haworth, "The Voyage of RAD: From the Old World to the New, " Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 7.
25. And Elio Lodolini, "The War of Independence of Archivists. " Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989): 41.
26. Encoded Archival Description Tag Library, Version 1.0 (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1998), 1-3.
27. See The XML Cover Pages, at http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/sgnil-xml. html, for more information on SGML and XML.
28. Wendy M. Duff and Kent M. Haworth, "Advancing Archival Description: A Model for Rationalising North American Descriptive Standards, " Archives and Manuscripts 25, no. 2 (November 1997): 210-211.
29. Known as the "Toronto Accords, " participants at the meeting acknowledged that a common North American descriptive standard would be of great benefit to users both in the United States and Canada, and that a common descriptive standard would be more cost-effective since archivists in both countries would only have to develop and maintain one set of standards, not two.
30. A graphic illustration of the integral relationships between authority records and descriptive records in a complete archival description is given by Hugo Stibbe in "Standardising Description: The Experience of Using ISAD(G), " Janus 1 (1998): 149.
31. Heather MacNeil. "The Reviewer Responds, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91): 9.
32. Luciana Duranti, "Origin and Development of the Concept of Archival Description, " Archivaria 35 (Spring 1993): 52.