Society of American Archivists, 2019 Paper: 978-1-945246-07-4 | eISBN: 978-1-945246-09-8 Library of Congress Classification CD950.M45 2019
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Book 2 in the Archival Fundamentals Series III
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Dennis Meissner is the retired Deputy Director for Programs at the Minnesota Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, and a past president of SAA. Most of his career has focused on the arrangement, description, and use of archival materials, and he has participated in a number of national and international efforts to develop standards and practices in those areas. In 2003–2004, he collaborated with Mark A. Greene on the NHPRC-funded More Product, Less Process research project, which has seen broad adoption within American archives and special collections.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD: The Evolution of a Book Series . vii Peter J. Wosh
1 The Context and Significance of Arrangement and Description . 1 Its Purpose . 1 A Brief History of Archival Arrangement and Description . .5 Core Archival Concepts .11
2 Principles of Archival Arrangement . 16 Arrangement Options . 16 Respect des Fonds, Provenance, and the Archival Whole . 17 Original Order . 22 Five Fundamental Levels of Control . 26 A Caveat: When Hierarchy and Structure Are Absent . 31 The Granularity of Arrangement . 32
3 Principles of Archival Description . 35 The Purpose of Description . 35 Description Is Structured Data, Not Prose . 37 The Relationship of Description to Arrangement . 39 Archival Descriptive Standards . 40 Archival Description Is Multilevel . 57 Describing the Context as Well as the Content . 58 Intellectual Order and Administrative Order . 64
4 Physical Processing and Arrangement . 68 Accessioning: Establishing Initial Controls . 68 The Practice of Arrangement . 74 Defining the Project and Creating a Workplan . 78 Arranging the Collection Materials . 80 Dealing with Restricted Materials . 88 Preservation Actions and Processing . 89 Dealing with Accruals . 90
5 Describing the Materials . 93 Constructing Descriptions Using DACS Data Elements . 94 Creating Descriptive Metadata . 111 Output Solutions: Publishing and Sharing Descriptive Metadata . 122
6 Arranging and Describing Nontextual Formats . 129 Arranging and Describing Sound and Visual Materials . 129 Arrangement and Description in a Digital World . 132
7 Emerging Trends and Theoretical Shifts . 144 Challenges to the Concept of Original Order . 144 Revolutionizing Our Models of Description . 146 MPLP and Its Aftermath . 148 Influences from Critical Theory . 150
CONCLUSION . 156
APPENDIXES A Glossary of Arrangement and Description Terminology . 159 B Examples of Institutional Processing Levels . 163 C Finding Aid Examples . 165 D Example of Full EAD Finding Aid . 176 E Example of MARC21 Record . 182 F Crosswalks between Descriptive Standards . 187 G Recommended Reading . 192
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . 206
INDEX . 208
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