The following terms are listed in order of process, as opposed to alphabetical order.
Archives would not exist without the...
CREATOR: The person or organization that creates or receives and accumulates documents. In terms of corporate records, this is often referred to as "Office of Origin" - in essence, the corporate body from which the documents were created, received, or accumulated in the conduct of business. (e.g. associations, business firms, churches, conferences, governments, NGAs, institutions, nonprofit organizations, etc.)
ARCHIVES: (1) The documents created or received and accumulated by a person or organization in the course of the conduct of affairs, and preserved because of their continuing value. More narrowly, in the context of an organization or institution, these are referred to as "non-current records." (2) The building or part of a building where archival materials are located. Also referred to as an archival repository.
APPRAISAL: The process of determining the value and thus the disposition of records based upon their current administrative, legal, and fiscal use and their evidential and informational value. [a narrow definition that will be expanded upon in week 4]
ACQUISITION: An addition to the holdings of an archive, whether received by transfer under an established procedure (i.e. records schedules used in government records), by deposit, purchase, gift, or bequest. [or rescued!! i.e. relief records at Western Archives]
ACCESSION: The formal acceptance into custody of an acquisition, and the recording of such an act, as opposed to de-accessioning which is the process by which an archives formally removes material from its custody. [Why would you de-accession?]
[So ... we now have the goods. What are they?? Within the literature you will encounter the following terminology]
DOCUMENT: Recorded information regardless of medium or characteristics (clay tablet, papyrus, paper, parchment, film, magnetic tape, floppy disks)
MANUSCRIPT: A handwritten or typed document (the latter more accurately called a typescript)
EPHEMERA: Documents created specifically for a transitory purpose. Advertisements, calling cards, notices, and tickets are examples of ephemera.
ARRANGEMENT: The intellectual and physical processes and results of organizing Documents in accordance with accepted archival principles, particularly Provenance, at as many as necessary of the following levels [from general to the specific]: Repository, Collection or Record Group or Fonds, Subgroups or Sous fonds, Series, Subseries, File Unit and Item.
DESCRIPTION: The process of analyzing, organizing, and recording information that serves to identify, manage, locate and explain the holdings of archives and the contexts from which those holdings were selected.
When you take on an acquisition and begin the arrangement & description process, there are 3 cardinal principles that we must always endeavor to follow:
PROVENANCE: The organization or individual that created, accumulated, and/or maintained and used records in the conduct of their business/affairs prior to their transfer to an archives.
RESPECT FOR ORIGINAL ORDER (ORIGINAL ORDER): The principle that archives of a single provenance should retain the arrangement established by the Creator in order to preserve existing relationships and evidential significance and, if provided by the Creator, the usefulness of existing finding aids. [ in other words, archives, as documents of some creating agency, have a special meaning because of that fact. Whether personal or corporate in nature, they were created in the course of one's life cycle or business. In either case, they may have (or had) a special order established by their creator for his/her own purposes, and when preserved in that order, they are revealing of those purposes. The meaning of the documents may be obscured or lost if the order is tampered with --- this is why original order is often the most difficult to carry into execution]
PRINCIPLE OF PROVENANCE (RESPECT DES FONDS): The principle that records/archives of the same provenance must not be intermingled with those of any other provenance, frequently referred to as "respect des fonds". Do not let documents drift away from it. Do not let alien documents find their way into it.
ARCHIVAL INTEGRITY: When we maintain a body of archives according to "original order" and "respect des fonds", then we have "archival integrity".
FONDS: The whole of the documents, regardless of form or medium (Canadian usage)
INVENTORY: A basic archival finding aid whose unit of entry is usually the Series. Inventories generally include a brief Administrative History of the organization(s) or individual(s) whose records are being described. Series Descriptions provide as a minimum such data as title, inclusive dates, quantity, arrangement, relationship to other Series, and Scope and Content Notes.