An author contacts your organization about a prominent political figure who played a significant role in the local community decades ago. They hope to uncover correspondence, speeches, photographs, campaign materials, clippings, and any other records that might provide the precise insight needed to develop a nuanced and thorough biography. Rather than asking for a specific document, they are looking for anything relevant that can help reconstruct the story of their rise, impact, and legacy.
Whether the researcher can quickly find what they’re looking for depends largely on how well the archive has been described—that’s where the General International Standard Archival Description or ISAD(G) comes in.
Adopted and approved by the International Council on Archives, the ISAD(G) provides a hierarchy for developing descriptions of archival materials utilizing descriptive tiers of information. The ISAD(G) is underpinned by a data structure that follows four general principles: multilevel descriptions, linking descriptions, non-repetition of information, and guidelines to help archivists determine which information is relevant at a given level of description.
The ISAD(G) and its North American corollary, Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), simplify and streamline information. Moving from general information to the specific, both standards reduce redundancy in collection management data, helping organizations, registrars, and archivists determine what information should be recorded, and how to best organize descriptive information.
ISAD(G) and DACS rely upon an information hierarchy to describe how materials were created and how they’re connected to other items in the archive. Fonds represent the complete body of records, such as “Grant Wood documents 1918-1932,” encapsulating everything included within the same archival context. The series relates to groupings of materials within a fonds, and a file refers to the collection of documents grouped together for a specific purpose.
Each hierarchical layer inherits the traits of the levels above, so a file nestled under the Smith Family fond will preserve the creator context without requiring it to be noted. Collector Systems has built the ISAD(G) and DACS protocols into the Archival Repository tab. Compliant with both standards, the tab makes it easy for any institution to adhere to industry standards.
As a top tab, the Archival Repository provides collection-level descriptions of archival collections or fonds. This functionality can be used to create or connect to DACS-compliant Authority Records. The fields within the tab and those generated when grouping and editing objects cover all 26 possible descriptive elements of ISAD(G), allowing users to select whichever is most appropriate for the given archive.
As DACS further emphasizes creators, access, and interoperability across institutions, the Archival Repository tab makes it easy to generate a new record using the Add (plus sign) on the page. From there, users can enter the Repository Subject, intended to reflect the official name assigned to the unit of description. By identifying creators via information like authorized name, alternate names, biographical information, and life dates, users can maintain consistency across records and reduce ambiguity.
Imagine two archivists describing the same collection independently. The first processed the collection when it was initially donated years ago to a smaller institution. They recorded the creator of the archive as “J. Smith,” but years later, after the institution merged with a larger organization, a different archivist took over the management of the collection and entered the creator as “John Smith.” Although both descriptions refer to the same records, they are difficult to compare, search, or combine. A researcher trying to capture every known item for a catalogue raisonne might miss an exhibition catalogue entry for “J. Smith” if they’re searching for “John Smith.”
Consistency in Authority Records ensures that records remain consistent throughout the collection and in perpetuity. If an organization merges with another institution, or staff turnover leads to multiple archivists cataloging a collection, adhering to ISAD(G) and DACS makes it easier for other institutions, archivists, researchers, and others searching for information to quickly locate items and makes mapping existing records to new collection management systems much easier.
The conventions and uniformity in descriptive syntax also make exhibition collaboration easier, provide documentation for the right of custody, and can help organizations identify sensitive or restricted materials, making it easier to manage access and assess if sharing them widely is appropriate.
When standards are integrated into a collection management system, like Collector Systems’ Archival Repository tab, consistency is no longer left to individual practice—it becomes part of the software itself. The metadata created by Collector Systems preserves the context and history of the archive and makes the items more discoverable by providing the information to share with libraries, museums, and other digital repositories. Collector Systems becomes more than just a database—it becomes a reliable gateway to your archival collections.
