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This short history is written to give context to the work of the International Council of Archives in descriptive standards and related projects. It traces the origin of the Ad Hoc Commission and its successor, the Committee on Descriptive Standards. It ends with the XIVth
International Congress on Archives, held in Seville, Spain, 21-26 September 2000.
1. THE PERIOD 1988/90 - 1996
1.1 Origin of Commission
The ICA Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards had its origin in an Invitational Meeting of Experts on Descriptive Standards held in Ottawa, Canada, 4 - 7 October 1988. At the initiative of Harold Naugler, the then chair of the ICA Automation Committee, the meeting was hosted and sponsored by the National Archives of Canada in cooperation with the International Council on Archives.1
The need for standards for archival description was felt to arise from automation. In the 1980s, as a result of automation studies and systems design, and attempts at implementing such systems for description of archival holdings in major archival repositories, particularly in
Canada, the UK and the United States, a general lack of consistency in archival
descriptive practices was evident. Automation demands consistency in approach
and procedures in the functions to be automated. Archivists had not paid much
attention to this requirement for large scale automation projects. This, in
contrast to small scale automation projects, such as those implemented by
individual archivists on stand-alone microcomputers using off-the-shelf word
processing and database management software. Such efforts needed only
consistency of approach for the individual, small, projects created using these
computers. Examples of such projects were inventories, lists, or specific types
of finding aids, the end product of these being almost always a conventional
paper product (print-out).
Another issue which was mentioned relating to the need of standards was the exchange of archival descriptive information between repositories. Even though archival materials are considered to be unique, major copying projects, using microfilming and other copying techniques
make for multiple copies of holdings in archival repositories. The scattering of
archival fonds among multiple archives or even among countries, etc. was also
seen as a reason to standardize descriptive information so as to make
re-describing material belonging to the same fonds or copies of these no longer
necessary and to enable collocation, i.e., the bringing together, of parts of
fonds of the same provenance possible in union lists and other finding aids.
This latter issue is becoming more relevant and pressing when archival
repositories are making their holdings accessible on-line on the Internet in the
form of descriptions representing those holdings.
Mention was also made of the archives of former colonies located in repositories of their former colonizers. Such archives have been extensively copied by the repositories of the colonized country or by cooperative projects between the two or other interested parties. The
descriptive information of the copied material should not have to be redone. It
should be made possible to exchange the information (i.e., transfer the descriptions) in a standardized form with the copied material.
A number of papers presented at the meeting dealt with the state of affairs about efforts for archival descriptive standardization in the various countries from which speakers came. It became
clear that such efforts were in most cases at the very beginning stages of development or not developed at all. To those who were there, it also became painfully evident that some of the delegates were neither sure what the meeting was about nor cognizant of the problem and, therefore, of the need for archival descriptive standards. The meeting came to the unanimous conclusion that there was a need for international archival descriptive standards and passed a number of resolutions asking the ICA to establish a working group.2
In response to the resolutions ICA jointly with Unesco organized a consultative meeting, "The Expert Consultation on the Planning of a Long-Term International Action for the Development of Descriptive Standards for Archives". Unesco hosted the meeting and it was held in Paris 1-2 December 1989 at Unesco headquarters.
The following persons were invited and were present at the meeting:
Mr. Amadou A. Bousso, Chief, Division of Unesco Information Services, UNESCO,
PARIS, France; M. Ghislain Brunel, Conservateur, CARAN, Archives nationales,
PARIS, France; M. Pedro Gonzalez, Director, Centro de Informacion Documental de
Archivos, MADRID, Spain; Mr. Markku Jarvinen, UNESCO Archivist, PARIS, France;
Dr. Christopher Kitching, Assistant Secretary, Royal Commission on Historical
Manuscripts, LONDON, England; Dr. Charles Kecskeméti, Executive Director ICA,
PARIS, France; Mr. W. Löhner, Chief, Division of General Information Programme,
UNESCO, PARIS, France; Dr. Lorenz Mikoletzky, VIENNA, Austria; Dr Hugo Stibbe,
Senior Archival Descriptive Standards Officer, Office of Archival Descriptive
Standards, National Archives of Canada, OTTAWA, Canada; Dr Sharon G. Thibodeau,
Director, Archival Publications & Accessions NN-E, National Archives and
Records Administration, WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.; and Mrs. Habibah Yahaya,
National Archives of Malaysia, KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia. Dr. Christopher Kitching
was asked to chair the meeting.
Mr. Bousso, who opened the meeting, pointed out that he was present as a representative of Unesco's Division of Information Services, the division responsible for these kinds of activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). He said that he was also acting as representative for Unesco's Division of the General Information Programme, whose Chief, Mr. Löhner would be joining the meeting later. It is this latter division that has worked with the library community, primarily IFLA and its Programme of Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC Programme), in developing their cataloguing standards and, as such, this Unesco Division obviously also
has interests in the initiative of ICA.
The meeting set the tone of future meetings of the working group and its successors. It also agreed upon the methods which would be employed for the development of international archival descriptive standards. Among other things, it was found essential that wide consultation with the international archival community must be held. National archival associations were to be the principal gateways for soliciting comments on drafts, etc. Such associations represent, in most cases, the archival profession and archival practitioners. It was further decided that, due to often indistinct conceptualization of what descriptive standards were, as exemplified by the
Ottawa meeting, it would be prudent to first develop a statement upon which the standards were to be based. Dr. Hugo Stibbe was asked to draft a ‘statement of principles’. To coordinate the work, the International Council on Archives negotiated an agreement with the National Archives of Canada to establish a Secretariat there. The agreement was signed in 1990.
1.2 Establishement of Commission
At its meeting in Wroclaw, Poland, in September 1990, the ICA Executive formally established the Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards (ICA/DDS). It appointed a Chair, Dr Christopher J.
Kitching of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, London, England and a Project Director and Secretary, Dr Hugo LP Stibbe of the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa. The former working group members became the members of the Commission. Unesco gave the ICA a contract to develop the standard for a period of two years, later extended for another two years.
1.3 Development of the Statement of Principles
In October 1990, the Commission held its first plenary meeting in Höhr-Grenzhausen, near Koblenz, Germany at the invitation of Wolf Buchmann (Secretary on Technical Matters, ICA Secretariat) of the German National Archives (Koblenz). A draft Statement of Principles, prepared by Hugo Stibbe, was discussed and amended. This draft was subsequently sent out for a world-wide review. The Commission met for its second plenary in Madrid, Spain, in January 1992. It examined the draft again and, in light of the many comments received from the review, amended the
document substantially. The Statement of Principles Regarding Archival Description, First version Revised was the result of that process. The Statement of Principles was officially adopted by the General Assembly of ICA which passed a resolution to that effect at its XIIth International Congress on Archives in September 1992 in Montreal, Canada.
At this congress the Ad Hoc Commission held an open forum on the Statement and the Madrid draft of ISAD(G), see below. There was great interest as the room set aside for the forum proved to be too small to accommodate all. There was opposition to some of the principles, from
the United States and the UK but mainly from Australia. In particular that of
the concept of the fonds and the departure point of application of the standard
of description taking place after arrangement and after the archives has taken
custody of the material. Right in the middle of the heated discussion, all power
in the building went out due to a raging thunderstorm over Montreal and the room
went totally dark. This cooled the discussion down somewhat. The end result was
that a member from Australia, Chris Hurley, was added to the Commission to
represent the divergent views. At the plenary of the Commission in Stockholm in
January 1993 it was decided to let the Statement stand but not to publish
it.
1.4 Development of ISAD(G), first edition
Also, at the first plenary meeting in
Höhr-Grenzhausen a small sub-committee was established, consisting of Wendy
Duff, coordinator (Canada), Michael Cook (UK), Sharon Thibodeau (U.S.A.) and
Hugo Stibbe, Project Director and Secretary DDS (Canada) to draft the first
version of ISAD(G). At the invitation of Michael Cook, the sub-committee met in
Liverpool, UK in July 1991 to complete the draft for consideration at the next
plenary meeting of the Commission. That plenary was held in Madrid, Spain, in
January 1992. The draft ISAD(G) formally adopted at the meeting became known as
the ‘Madrid draft of the ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival
Description’. It was the draft which was circulated world wide for comment. It
also appeared in a few archival journals published as special issues for the XII
International Congress on Archives in Montreal in 1992. It was translated into
the 5 languages of the congress and distributed as a congress paper. The draft
was discussed in an open session organized by the DDS.
The Commission met again in Stockholm in January 1993 where it examined the comments received from the world wide review. It made changes and revised the document in the light of the comments and from comments noted at the open session of the Montreal congress.
The document was subsequently published by ICA under its title adopted in Madrid: ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description. / Adopted by the Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards, Stockholm, Sweden, 21-23 January 1993 (Final ICA approved version).
— Ottawa, 1994. — ISBN 0-9696035-1-7. It was stated in the preface (P.5)
that a 5-year revision cycle was foreseen. During this interval it was expected
that archival institutions would examine the standard and would try to use and
test it. It was assumed that the experience would result in good practical
advice and comments for the revision of the standard.
1.5 Development of ISAAR(CPF)
During the development of ISAD(G) it was
apparent already early on that archival description does not only consist of
description of the archival material itself but that it cannot be complete
without information about the creators of that material. There were provisions
in ISAD(G) for ‘access points’ for creators and it was recognized that these
access points needed control over the form (as an index term or key) to enable
it to function effectively as a search term for accessing the description. The
standard mentions authority control as a tool to accomplish this standardization
of access points. It mentions in its introduction (I.8) that "the Ad Hoc
Commission is developing a standard description for authority records".
Recognition of the importance of controlling the form and content of access
points led the group to propose development of a standard for such control in
archival information systems. The standard envisioned had much in common with
library standards for authority control of headings, but it was nevertheless
distinct from these standards in that it contains additional contextual
information about the creator named in the heading of the authority record.
Consequently, another sub-group was established
during the Stockholm plenary in January 1993 to develop a working document for
authority control. The subgroup consisted of Wendy Duff (Canada), Jan Dahlin
(Sweden), Christine Nougaret (France), Michael Cook (UK) and Hugo Stibbe
(Project Director and Secretary ICA/DDS). It met again at the invitation of
Michael Cook in Liverpool, UK, in November 1993.
In carrying out its development of an
international standard for archival authority records, the sub-group drew upon
research relating to archival authority records underway in Canada and the
United States as well as international authority records work that had been done
by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
in the 1970's and 80's such as Guidelines for authority and reference entries
(IFLA, 1984). The group completed a draft document which was discussed, amended,
and extended at the plenary of the Ad Hoc Commission at its meeting in The Hague
in October 1994. The draft was circulated to the international archival
community for comment. As with the previous standard ISAD(G), comments received
during this world wide review were taken into account at a plenary of the
Commission held in Paris in November 1995. It lead to the published document ISAAR(CPF):
International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons
and Families. Final ICA approved version / Prepared by the Ad Hoc Commission
on Descriptive Standards, Paris, France, 15-20 November 1995. — Ottawa : The
Secretariat of the ICA Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards, 1996. —
ISBN 0-9696035-3-3.
The completion of the two complementary and
mutually inclusive standards, ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF), before the XIIIth
International Congress on Archives in Beijing in 1996 was a major accomplishment
of the ICA and its Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards. The development
and completion of these two standards constituted the main thrust of its work
for the period for which it had received funding from Unesco. The General
Assembly at the 1996 international congress voted to make the Ad Hoc Commission
into a permanent ICA committee to be known as the Committee on Descriptive
Standards (ICA/CDS). The maintenance of the two standards, each 5 years after
publication, continued to be the priority of the committee in its strategic work
plan.
1.6 Development of Guidelines for Translation
Many questions regarding translation of,
initially, ISAD(G) were directed to the Secretariat of the commission. It became
apparent that guidelines for the translation were necessary because translations
started to appear which were not consistent in what was translated and what was
kept in the original language of development by the commission. Thus, another
project was started: to develop guidelines for the translation of the standards
into other languages than English. These guidelines went through many drafts and
iterations over a long period of time. The guidelines were originally drafted
using the translation of ISAD(G) into French as its primary example. The
original standard was in English as this was the working language of the
commission during the development of ISAD(G). After the publication of ISAAR(CPF)
the guidelines had to be generalized so as to be valid for both standards and,
later still, it was deemed necessary to generalize them even further so that
they would be suitable for all publications issued by the Committee. The
guidelines were never officially published but when requests came to the
Secretariat for translation, a copy of the guidelines were transmitted to the
translators or the initiators. The guidelines now appear on the ICA/CDS Web site
for general consultation and use.
2. THE PERIOD 1996 - 2000
The Committee which was re-established as a
permanent one by the ICA Executive at the ICA International Congress in Beijing
in 1996 with a fresh mandate and a new name. Some of its members were drawn from
the previous Ad Hoc Commission to ensure continuity, and new members were added.
It took some time to appoint the members and almost a year passed before it
could meet.
2.1 Revision of ISAD(G), (Second edition)
The first plenary of the new committee was held
in Florence, Italy, in November 1997. The meeting established an ambitious work
plan, some items of which were carry-overs from the previous quadrennium. The
main task for the next quadrennium was the 5-year review of ISAD(G) due in 1999.
To this end a letter was sent to all "A" and "B" members of
ICA asking for comments and giving some guidelines for submitting them to the
committee. The same call for comments were posted on the ICA Web site and
submitted for the ICA Bulletin. The deadline for comments was set for 15
September 1998. Included in the covering letter was a request to also submit
citations to articles mentioning ISAD(G) or ISAAR(CPF) because the committee
wanted to compile a bibliography related to these standards. Also requested were
a copy of all translations of the standards and their citations.
The comments were compiled in a compendium by
the secretariat of the ICA/CDS. This document was the main working document for
the review which took place in The Hague at the second plenary of the committee
in October 1998. Here, a draft of the second edition of ISAD(G) was compiled
from the comments received. This draft was further refined by correspondence,
mostly e-mail. It was completed at the third plenary of the committee which was
held in Stockholm in September 1999. It was translated into French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese and, together with the English version, published in Madrid
by the Subdirección General de Archivos Estatales in 2000. A copy, in one of
the available languages as requested by the delegate, was given to all delegates
of the XIVth International Congress on Archives held in Seville, Spain in
September 2000. The English and French version are also posted on the ICA/CDS Web site.
2.2 Compilation of a bibliography
The compilation of a bibliography of the two
standards, including all of their translations, and of citations of articles
which mention ISAD(G) or ISAAR(CPF) was thought to be useful to assess the
extent to which the two standards are being used, researched or discussed
internationally. By this means it would be possible to gain an insight into the
success or shortcomings of the two standards. It was also seen as a useful
publication for those institutions which wish to conduct testing of the
standards on their own to evaluate what others had already learned.
The multilingual bibliography was compiled by
Christine Nougaret with contributions of members of the commission and
submissions from the international archival community asked for in the covering
letter for comments on the revision of ISAD(G). It was a large and difficult
project which needed cooperation of many with constantly new articles which had
to be added. It was finished and together with the second edition of ISAD(G)
also published in 2000 at the XIVth International Council and Congress on
Archives in Seville, Spain, September 2000.3 The bibliography also
reveals the many contributions made by members of the Commission during this
period by promoting the standards and explaining or clarifying them in papers
and presentations which were done at various national and international
meetings, congresses, seminars, etc.. The bibliography was also placed in the
registration package for all delegates to the international congress in Seville.
2.3 International Standard Authority Number:
cooperation with IFLA
An important project was the cooperation with
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Working
Group on Minimal Level Authority Records (MLAR) and the International Standard
Authority Data Number (ISADN). ICA/CDS felt that the expertise and experience
which IFLA had with issues of international standard numbers, such as ISBNs and
ISSNs, should be solicited for the design and implementation of an international
standard archival authority code, such as suggested in ISAAR(CPF), i.e.,
Identity code, 1.1. The representative of IFLA, Eeva Murtomaa, was present at
the meeting in Florence. She brought the study conducted by the IFLA Working
Group, DRAFT "Essential Data Elements for International Shared Resource
Authority Records". The appendix identifies in a matrix the data elements
currently provided in communications formats as used in some national libraries.
The elements are specified as essential and optional. A glossary and informative
examples are included.
It was decided that Michael Fox (USA) and
Dagmar Parer (Australia) were to examine this document and to identify common
elements with ISAAR(CPF) and to add elements which the ICA standards have but
which are not present in the IFLA document and vice versa. Then, to make
recommendations as to the extent of cooperation ICA/CDS could accomplish. The
report was completed and submitted to the full committee in The Hague. It is
available elsewhere on this site (see Reports & Studies page).
2.4 EAD
Also on the working plan were the study of, and
cooperation with the Working Group of the American Society of Archivists which
developed the Encoded Archival Description (EAD). Michael Fox, one of the new
members of the committee, and also on the American Working Group, was appointed
liaison with the Society of American Archivists. Discussion took place regarding
the merit of this liaison given that the EAD standard does not conform to ISAD(G)
nor does it include the elements of ISAAR(CPF). The intention is that American
Working Group develops an EAD for "contextual information" associated
with archival creators and that it also reviews and revises EAD to conform with
ISAD(G). Suggestions were also made whether an international version of EAD that
would conform to the ICA standards (dubbed EAD-short) would be useful. No
further action from the side of the ICA/CDS was taken.
2.5 Guidelines for finding aids
An important project during the quadrennium
under discussion was the development of guidelines for an archival finding aids
typology and for standardization of finding aids. This initiative was deemed
necessary to clarify how ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) relate to finding aids. It was
decided to set up a subcommittee, the ICA/CDS Sub-committee on Finding Aids with
members Ana Franqueira (Portugal), Jan Dahlin (Sweden), Stefano Vitali (Italy),
Debra Wall (USA), and Bruno Galland (France), chaired by Jan Dahlin with, as
secretary, Debra Wall. Over the course of time, the membership changed somewhat.
But it functioned for the remainder of the quadrennium. It received a separate
mandate which is worth noting here because the final report and recommendations,
available on this site, have to be seen in the context of what the sub-committee
was to examine and report on:
Mandate Statement of the Sub-committee on Finding Aids
ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) provide a
framework for the description of archival materials based on generally
accepted archival principles. They do not, however, prescribe the
methods or systems by which that descriptive information can be
accessed. Archivists traditionally have created different forms of
finding aids to convey descriptive information to facilitate access.
The mandate of this sub-committee shall
be to assess current practices and to suggest how the data structure of
ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) might be applied to the construction of finding
aids.
To accomplish these objectives, the
sub-committee shall:
-- review representative types of
finding aids and associated terminology and prepare an analysis of
their purpose, contents, and structure;
-- define principles for the
preparation of finding aids based on ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF); and
-- provide examples of finding aids
of each type, created according to the rules of ISAD(G) and
ISAAR(CPF).
Besides the plenary sessions of the ICA/CDS,
the sub-committee met separately twice, once in Lisbon and once in Paris, at the
invitation and with the support of the Portuguese national archives and the
national archives of France respectively. The final report and recommendations
did not include the survey of existing finding aids and, therefore, not the
typology for them even though an initial thorough study was done by Stefano
Vitali. In the end it was seen as an impossible task because of the variety of
finding aids which archives produce, the different naming conventions in various
languages, and the variety and subtle variations of their contents, etc. The
report does, however, give a typology in broad terms based on ISAD(G) compliance
and non-compliance. It was finished in 2001 and translated into French in 2002
and available on this Web site.
The Committee held an open session at the XIVth
International Congress on Archives where almost all members were present on the
stage to answer questions about the new revised second edition of ISAD(G) and
all of its work over the last quadrennium. Given the great interest in its work
the decision to continue was made by the Executive and the General Assembly for
the next quadrennium. The Committee’s membership was greatly expanded with
corresponding members and its reporting structure changed in line with the
restructuring of the ICA itself.
1. The proceedings of this meeting were
published as Toward International Descriptive Standards : Papers
presented at the ICA Invitational Meeting of Experts on Descriptive
Standards, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa 4-7 October 1988 /
Compiled and edited with the financial assistance of the Toronto Area
Archivists Group Education Foundation = Projet de normes internationales
de description en archivistique : Communications présentées B
la réunion restreinte d’experts en normes de description, Archives
nationales du Canada, Ottawa, du 4 au 7 octobre 1988
/ Receuil rassablé et publié avec l’aide financiPre
de la Toronto Area Archivists Group Education Foundation. — München ; New
Providence ; London ; Paris : Saur, 1993. — ISBN 3-598-11163-0.
2. Resolution
number 2 called for the International Council on Archives to
" establish a working
group consisting of archivists knowledgeable in descriptive theory and
practices to develop international standards for the description of
archives (for application in both a manual or automated system), oversee
the appointment of members of the working group in consultation with the
Executive Committee, regularly inform ICA members of the activities and
progress of the working group on topics relevant to the purpose of
drafting such international standards for archival materials of all
media, and submit to the consultation of users those drafted
standards."
The resolution went on
"That the International
Council on Archives working group on descriptive standards prepare draft
standards and rules for the description of archives at the fonds/group/collection
level for the consideration of the international community."
3. The bibliography’s citation is as
follows:
Bibliography = Bibliographie = Bibliografia
/ compiled by Christine Nougaret; assisted by Christopher Kitching (former chairman of the ICA Ad
Hoc Commission), Hugo Stibbe (Project Director), Adrian Cunningham, Vitor
Fonseca, Michael Fox, Asuncíon de Navascués Benlloch, Dagmar Parer,
Stefano Vitali, Elisa Carolina de Santos Canalejo, ICA/CDS members; with
contributions by Masahito Ando (Secretary for the Study Group of Archival
Information Management, Tokyo), Annick Carteret (assistante du Secrétaire
général du CIA), Alex Delvaux (Library and Documentation Services
Division, National Archives of Canada), and the national archivists of
Bulgaria, Croatia, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine. — Paris:
International Council on Archives, 2000; Madrid : Ministerio de educación,
Dirección general del libro archivos y bibliotecas, Subdirección general
de los archivos estatales, 2000. — ISBN 84-8181-81-188-2.
Note: That part of the above citation after the title and parallel
titles also appears in French and Spanish.
APPENDIX
Members of the Ad Hoc Commission and its successor, the Committee on Descriptive Standards and years in which they served.
Victoria Arias (Spain) |
1996-1998 |
Ghislain Brunel (France) |
1990-1991 |
Elisa Carolina de Santos Canalejo (Spain) |
1998-2000 |
Michael Cook (UK) |
1990-1994 |
Adrian Cunningham (Australia) |
1998-2000 |
Jan Dahlin (Sweden) |
1990-2000 |
Wendy Duff (Canada) |
1990-1994 |
Vitor Manoel Marques da Fonseca (Brazil) |
1996-2000 |
Michael Fox (USA) |
1996-2000 |
Ana Franqueira (Portugal) |
1990-2000 |
Bruno Galland (France) |
1996-2000 |
Pedro Gonzales (Spain) |
1990-1992 |
Kent Haworth (Canada) |
1996-2000 |
Chris Hurley (Australia) |
1992-1994 |
Ma Jinghua (China) |
1996-2000 |
Christopher Kitching (UK) Chair (1990-1994) |
1990-1994 |
Christine Nougaret, (France) Chair (1994-2000) |
1992-2000 |
Dagmar Parer (Australia) |
1996-1998 |
Christine Petillat (France) |
1991-1992 |
Lydia Reid (USA) |
1998-2000 |
Hugo Stibbe (Canada) Project Director and Secretary |
1990-2000 |
Sharon G. Thibodeau (USA) |
1990-1996 |
Stefano Vitali (Italy) |
1996-2000 |
Debra Wall (USA) |
1996-1998 |
Habibah Zon Yahaya (Malaysia) |
1990-1994 |
Also attending one or more plenary meetings: Asunción de Navascués Benlloch (Spain)
Eeva Murtomaa (Finland) IFLA liaison Per-Gunnar Ottosson (Sweden).
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