{"id":1978,"date":"2020-11-02T12:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T12:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2020-11-02T12:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T12:54:00","slug":"how-we-catalogue-archive-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2020\/11\/02\/how-we-catalogue-archive-records\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Catalogue Archive Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the launch of our new online catalogue<\/a>, we hope that many of you have now taken the opportunity to have a browse through our collections.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with how archive catalogues work, they may seem rather strange at first glance so let us explain how through arrangement and description archivists create a catalogue.<\/p>\n

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Archive catalogues are not flat lists describing every item but are arranged in a hierarchical manner that aims to reflect as much as possible the way that an archive was created. For example, if you look at the Beaminster Parish Council archive<\/a> you will see a hierarchical structure which is tree-like with multiple branches at lower levels. The reference number of anything in the archive reflects the cataloguing in its make-up with the initial reference\/mnemonic representing the fonds and then each slash \/ representing a drop down in levels of description.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

All of Dorset History Centre\u2019s catalogues are now created like this in line with the General International Standard Archival Description: ISAD(G) which is the standard to which many archivists work around the world and arranges catalogues into sections from the largest to the smallest, from the general to the specific.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An archive catalogue contains different levels of description beginning with what we call the Fonds, or collection level. This is the top level of the archive (e.g. D-BKL<\/a>) and here an archivist provides a general overview of the whole body of documents of an archive, including its overall size, a date range, information on the origin of the collection and its creator. It will also tell you whether there are any access restrictions on viewing the archive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A level below the fonds an archivist will group the archive into multiple sections of related records. These are called Series. An archivist will attempt to preserve the original order of the records within the collection whilst providing useful divisions for researchers.<\/p>\n

Sometimes these series will be based on departments or offices that produced the records, other times they may be categorised by functional distinctions. Again, as with the Fonds, the catalogue will describe the extent, scope and content of each Series.<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The next level down is the File level and is quite often the lowest level of description in a catalogue. A file is generally a group of documents that were created and\/or used for a specific purpose and could be for example a file of letters from an individual, or a photograph album. A file could consist of anything from a few items to several hundred.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The final level in the hierarchy, the smallest and most specific, which can be catalogued to is Item level. An Item\u2019s size could vary but it will be intellectually indivisible, i.e. A single photograph or letter. As mentioned above, catalogues might be only catalogued to File level and not down to Item level because the File level description will often be useful enough to researchers, and depending on the size of the collection it may take too much time to catalogue to Item level.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is of course an ideal and relatively simple description. Many archives may be collections from differing sources, and many are not as easy to divide and sort into their relevant series. Many larger archives will also be broken up further with Sub-Fonds and Sub-Series levels to provide further definition. You may also notice on several of our catalogues that there are Uncatalogued Accessions. These are deposits that have come in after the catalogue was created and these archives (and any future deposits) need to be added into the existing structure of the catalogue. Sadly, there is often neither the time nor resources for us to be able to catalogue everything but by working to this standard as described above it means that whenever the opportunity to do so does arise any archivist should be able to pick up where a previous archivist left off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the launch of our new online catalogue, we hope that many of you have now taken the opportunity to have a browse through our collections. If you\u2019re not familiar with how archive catalogues work, they may seem rather strange at first glance so let us explain how through arrangement and description archivists create a… Read more How We Catalogue Archive Records<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[82,242,241,243,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}