archival description [English]

Syndetic Relationships

InterPARES Definition

n. ~ The creation of an accurate representation of a unit of description and its component parts, if any, by capturing, analyzing, organizing and recording information that serves to identify, manage, locate and explain archival materials and the context and records systems which produced it.

Other Definitions

  • OAIS 2012 (†374 p. 1-9): Associated Description: The information describing the content of an Information Package from the point of view of a particular Access Aid. ¶ Collection Description: A type of Package Description that is specialized to provide information about an Archival Information Collection for use by Access Aids. ¶ Descriptive Information: The set of information, consisting primarily of Package Descriptions, which is provided to Data Management to support the finding, ordering, and retrieving of OAIS information holdings by Consumers. ¶ Information Property Description: The description of the Information Property. It is a description of a part of the information content of a Content Information object that is highlighted for a particular purpose. ¶ Member Description: An Associated Description that describes a member of a collection. ¶ Overview Description: A specialization of the Collection Description that describes the collection as a whole. ¶ Package Description: The information intended for use by Access Aids. ¶ Preservation Description Information (PDI): The information which is necessary for adequate preservation of the Content Information and which can be categorized as Provenance, Reference, Fixity, Context, and Access Rights Information. ¶ Unit Description: A type of Package Description that is specialized to provide information about an Archival Information Unit for use by Access Aids.

Citations

  • Duranti 1997 (†758 p. 217): The archival bond determines the meaning of the record. . . . This is [one] reason why archival description, as the means of elucidating the nature of the archival bond in its documentary context, has been traditionally considered the primary way of perpetuating and authenticating the meaning of the records and, in times of ongoing migrations, is probably going to be the best method for ensuring their authenticity in the long term. (†1918)