A review of existing practice |
...an eLib supporting study |
ISAD(G) is a set of general rules for archival description which is intended to be broadly applicable to descriptions of archives regardless of the nature or extent of the archives described or the level of description [ISADG]. The rules guide the formulation of information in each of 26 elements that may be combined to constitute the description of an archival entity. The primary value of the rules is that they support the creation of consistent appropriate and self-explanatory descriptions that in turn facilitate the retrieval and exchange of information about archival material.
The standard was developed by the Ad hoc Commission for Description of Standards of the International Council on Archives (ICA) with support from UNESCO and adopted by the ICA in 1994. Members of the Commission took as their starting point the British Manual of Archival Description, the American AACR2 and the Canadian Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa 1990 and continuing), and filtered these especially across practice in Spain, France, Portugal, Australia and Malaysia. Drafts of the standard were widely circulated and discussed and the resulting text has been mapped back to MAD and MARC and has subsequently also successfully mapped to Encoded Archival Description (EAD). In 1995 recipients of Non Formula Funding in the Humanities Special Collections funding for cataloguing archives agreed to utilise ISAD(G), as also have the Public Record Office and the Scottish Record Office. The development and successful test of a Z39.50 profile for archives which is based on ISAD(G), and the stated intention of the National Council on Archives that ISAD(G) would form the core descriptive standard, has added to the momentum of adoption of ISAD(G) in the UK. Training courses on ISAD(G) are now heavily oversubscribed, although wholesale retroconversion will inevitably depend on the release of further funding either under recently announced Research Support Libraries Programme or the Heritage Lottery Fund and New Opportunities Fund public library initiatives.
On publication, it was stated by the Ad hoc Commission that ISAD(G) would be reviewed in four years time. An international call for comment by professional organisations has now gone out. Comment from the Society of Archivists suggests that the minimum number of mandatory elements should be increased for fonds level description, or sub fonds where appropriate, and several others added. (Sub fonds are major groups of archives within a large archive such as the records of an individual company within a large multinational). In practice this recommendation, if adopted, would ensure that minimum fonds/collection level descriptions would expand to offer the functionality of a guide level entry.
Minimum ISAD(G) for a collection level description are cited below:
To establish a collection level description, equivalent in utility to a guide level description, archivists working on 'Follett' projects (projects funded by the Non-formula Funding of Specialised Research Collections in the Humanities) are already also routinely using at least all of the elements given below. The Society of Archivists will also be recommending to the ICA that they are made mandatory for fonds and sub fond level descriptions.
The Society of Archivists will also recommend the inclusion of a new mandatory element, date of compilation and/or revision of the catalogue description. A number of Follett fund holders are already using a note field element to provide this information but it is regarded as sufficiently important to merit an element in its own right.
The Society will also recommend the inclusion four further elements for index entries to persons, places, and corporation names and for subject authority entries. The formulation of names is covered by two sets of rules outlined below.
ISAAR (CPF), like ISAD(G), was prepared under the auspices of the ICA Ad hoc Commission on Description Standards and received endorsement from the ICA in 1996 and more recently from the Society of Archivists. In formulating its views the Commission drew upon work then in progress in Canada and the United States as well as work on international authority records done by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) such as Guidelines for authority and reference entries (1984). Its purpose is to support the preparation of consistent, appropriate, and self-explanatory description of corporate bodies, persons and families.
Broadly parallel in intention to the ISAAR (CPF) the declared purpose of the NCA Rules is to assist cataloguers of archives and manuscripts in forming names for persons, places and corporate bodies which are unique and readily identifiable by users. Like ISAAR (CPF) it has been adopted by the Society of Archivists, of which the majority of its working committee were members. Sources drawn upon included the Anglo-American Catalogue Rules, 2nd edition (London 1988), the rules for personal names drawn up by the editorial board of the New Dictionary of National Biography, the Canadian Rules for Archival Description and Steven L Hensen's Archives, Personal Papers and Manuscripts: a Cataloguing Manual for Archival Repositories, Historical Societies, and Manuscript Libraries, 2nd edition (Chicago, 1989). Because many archivists work within a larger library environment, departures from AACR2 were kept to a minimum but these departures were regarded as essential by the author of the rules.
Of the two, the NCA Rules, as the more detailed exposition of UK practice, has found a more immediate acceptance than ISAAR (CPF) but it is widely understood that there is no conflict in principle between the two. The NCA Rules will form the basis of authority lists which will be expected to provide one of several access points to a planned national network for archives, and hence will be the preferred approach for the implementation of additional ISAD(G) elements for fonds/collection level description for names. Concern has, however, been voiced about the adequacy of rules for place names both for the UK, and especially for overseas.
The Public Record Office, the British Library, and other major national repositories have all agreed to contribute data toward the establishment of national authority lists, and as far as immediately practical a number of Follett fund holders are already employing the rules for names within catalogues and indexes presently being compiled or revised.
The divergence from AACR2 is, however, an issue for the wider information community and there would seem to be merit, in the context of hybrid library developments, in following the museum community's lead in developing fuzzy matching for library and archive authority lists to ensure that all rules meet the purposes for which they were designed.
Patricia Methven, King's College London