ISAD(G) 2nd. edition - International Council on Archives

1 ICAINTERNATIONAL Council ON Archives CONSEIL International DES ARCHIVESISAD(G):General International Standard ArchivalDescriptionSecond EditionAdopted by the Committee on Descriptive StandardsStockholm, Sweden, 19-22 September 1999 Ottawa 20002 Copyright ICAM ultiplication of this publication is free if due acknowledgement is 0-9696035-5-XCANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATAMain entry under title: ISAD (G) : general International standard archival description : adopted by the Committeeon Descriptive Standards, Stockholm, Sweden, 19-22 September 19992nd also in French under the same 0-9696035-5-X 1. Cataloging of archival material--Standards. 2. Archival materials--Standards. cataloging--Standards. I. International Council on Archives . Committee on 2000 414 C00-900424-6 ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description, Second OF CONTENTSTABLE OF.

2 OF TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE GENERAL DESCRIPTION FROM THE GENERAL TO THE RELEVANT TO THE LEVEL OF OF OF OF STATEMENT Reference code(s).. (s).. of and medium of the unit of description (quantity, bulk, or size).. of creator(s).. / Biographical source of acquisition or AND STRUCTURE and , destruction and scheduling of OF ACCESS AND USE governing governing of characteristics and technical MATERIALS and location of and location of units of CONTROL 's or (s) of descriptions ..35 APPENDIX of the levels of arrangement of a between descriptive and authority body fonds: description of the fonds, and one of its series, sub-series, sub-sub-series, files and items. Language of description: English (Canada)..40 Personal fonds: description of the fonds, and two of its series, one of its sub-series, files and two items.

3 Language of description: English (Canada)..46 Corporate fonds: description of the fonds, and one each of its series, sub-series, files and items. Language of description: English (Canada)..51 Personal fonds: description of the fonds level and one of its series and of description: English ( )..55 Corporate fonds (organizational records): description of the fonds level and one of its series and items. Language of description: English ( )..58 Family fonds (family papers): description of the fonds level and one of its series and of description: English ( )..61 Personal fonds: description of the fonds and one of its of description: English (Australia)..63 Corporate fonds: description of the fonds and one of its series and of description: English (Australia)..66 Personal fonds: description of the fonds, and one of its sub-fonds, series, files and of description: French (France).

4 76 Personal fonds: description of the fonds, and one of its subfonds, files and of description: body fonds: description of the fonds, and one of its series and of description: fonds: description of the fonds, and one of its series and of description: Portuguese (Brazil)..89 ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description, Second ICA Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards (ICA/DDS), which developedISAD(G), became a permanent committee at the ICA International Congress on Archivesin Beijing, China, in 1996. The current Committee on Descriptive Standards (ICA/CDS)undertook the revision of ISAD(G) (Ottawa, 1994) as its primary task in its program for the1996-2000 , the second edition of the ISAD(G), is the result of a revision process which wasdeclared in the preface of the 1994 edition , where a five-year revision cycle was announcement to the International archival community for submitting comments forthe revision was made early in 1998 in letters sent to all institutional and associationmembers of the ICA, as well as to various relevant organizational units within ICA.

5 Theannouncement was also posted to the ICA List and World Wide Web (WWW) site on theInternet. The deadline for comments was announced for 15 September 1998 with the aimof starting the revision work at the second plenary meeting of the the end of September 1998 the Secretariat of the ICA/CDS had received approximately33 submissions from national committees, organizations and individuals from 25 comments were compiled into a compendium of some 101 pages. The Compendiumof Comments ISAD(G) Review , which was sent to all members of the Committee inadvance, became the working document for the 2nd Plenary meeting of the ICA/CDS 2nd Plenary took place in The Hague 19-22 October 1998 where a first draftof the revised ISAD(G) was produced based on the comments submitted. This draft wascirculated among the members and further refined by correspondence. The draft wasfinished at the 3rd Plenary of the Committee in Stockholm, Sweden and submitted forpublication in early 2000 for the XIVth International Congress on Archives in Seville, Spainin September following are the members of the ICA Committee on Descriptive Standards who undertook the revisionand served on the Committee during its 1996-2000 term.

6 (Members names in italic continued from theICA/DDS):Victoria Arias (Spain)1996-1998 Elisa Carolina de Santos Canalejo (Spain)1998-Adrian Cunningham (Australia)1998-Jan Dahlin (Sweden)1996-Vitor Manoel Marques da Fonseca (Brazil)1996-Michael Fox (USA)1996-Ana Franqueira (Portugal)1996-Bruno Galland (France)1996-Kent Haworth (Canada)1996-Ma Jinghua (China)1996-Christine Nougaret, (France) Chair1996-Dagmar Parer (Australia)1996-1998 Lydia Reid ( )1999- Hugo Stibbe (Canada) Project Director and Secretary1996-Stefano Vitali (Italy)1996-Debra Wall ( )1996-1998 Also attending one or more plenary meetings:Asunci n de Navascu s Benlloch (Spain) Eeva Murtomaa (Finland) IFLA liaisonPer-Gunnar Ottosson (Sweden)The ICA Committee on Descriptive Standards (ICA/CDS) gratefully acknowledges the sponsorship of itsplenary and sub-committee meetings by the following institutions: Archives de France (Paris) (twice)Archivio di Stato di Firenze (Florence, Italy)Arquivos Nacionais / Torre do Tombo (Lisbon, Portugal)Landsarkivet (Stockholm, Sweden) (twice)Rijksarchiefdienst (The Hague, Netherlands)The National Archives of Canada (Ottawa, Canada) which sponsored the Secretariat for a secondquadrennium of ICA descriptive standards their substantial contributions, both financial and in facilities and logistics for organizing themeetings, this standard would not have been possible.

7 ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description, Second standard provides general guidance for the preparation of archival descriptions. It isto be used in conjunction with existing national standards or as the basis for thedevelopment of national purpose of archival description is to identify and explain the context and content ofarchival material in order to promote its accessibility. This is achieved by creating accurateand appropriate representations and by organizing them in accordance with predeterminedmodels. Description-related processes may begin at or before records creation andcontinue throughout the life of the records. These processes make it possible to institutethe intellectual controls necessary for reliable, authentic, meaningful and accessibledescriptive records to be carried forward through elements of information about archival materials are recorded at every phase oftheir management ( , creation, appraisal, accessioning, conservation, arrangement) if thematerial is to be on the one hand securely preserved and controlled, and on the other handmade accessible at the proper time to all who have a right to consult it.

8 Archivaldescription in the widest sense of the term covers every element of information no matterat what stage of management it is identified or established. At every stage the informationabout the material remains dynamic and may be subject to amendment in the light offurther knowledge of its content or the context of its creation. Computerized informationsystems in particular may serve to integrate or select elements of information as required,and to update or amend them. While the focus of these rules is the description of archivalmaterials after the point at which they have been selected for preservation, they may alsobe applied at earlier standard contains general rules for archival description that may be applied irrespectiveof the form or medium of the archival material. The rules contained in this standard do notgive guidance on the description of special materials such as seals, sound recordings, ormaps.

9 Manuals setting out descriptive rules for such materials already exist. This standardshould be used in conjunction with these manuals to enable appropriate description ofspecial set of general rules for archival description is part of a process that the creation of consistent, appropriate, and self explanatory descriptions; the retrieval and exchange of information about archival material; the sharing of authority data; possible the integration of descriptions from different locations into a unifiedinformation rules accomplish these purposes by identifying and defining twenty-six (26) elementsthat may be combined to constitute the description of an archival entity. The structure andcontent of the information in each of these elements should be formulated in accordancewith applicable national rules. As general rules, these are intended to be broadly applicableto descriptions of Archives regardless of the nature or extent of the unit of , the standard does not define output formats, or the ways in which these elementsare presented, for example, in inventories, catalogues, lists, etc.

10 81It is assumed that the same rules used to describe a fonds and its parts may be applied to the description of a descriptive standards are based on accepted theoretical principles. For example,the principle that archival description proceeds from the general to the specific is thepractical consequence of the principle of respect des This principle must be articulatedif a generally applicable structure and system of archival description is to be built which isnot dependent on the finding aids of any given repository, whether in a manual orautomated Appendix A-1 one may find a hierarchical model of the levels of arrangement for thefonds and its constituent parts. There are levels of description, with differing degrees ofdetail, appropriate to each level of arrangement. For example, a fonds may be described asa whole in a single description or represented as a whole and in its parts at various levels ofdescription.