• Archival Finding Aids
• Best Practices at LC

Related Resources

• The EAD Standard
• SAA EAD Help Pages
• LC EAD Finding Aids (XML)

3.3 Collection-Level Information (Archival Description)

3.3 SECTIONS: Home | Basic Description (The High-Level <did>) | Controlled Vocabulary Terms | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketches and Agency Histories | Scope and Content Note | Arrangement | Description of Subordinate Components | Adjunct Descriptive Data | Other Descriptive Data

Tag:

<archdesc>

Description:

This wrapper element holds together the text of the archival finding aid, encompassing everything that is not included in the header or front matter. A required LEVEL attribute identifies the highest level of description represented by the finding aid, and other attributes may be set as well.

See Also:

Section 3.3.1.6, Language of the Material Go to Section

Section 3.3.1.11, Digital Archival Object Group Go to Section

Section 3.3.9, Other Descriptive Data Go to Section

Other Attributes:

The most common attribute values are listed below:

• level="collection" (entire collection described in finding aid) REQUIRED BY DTD
• type="register" (for standard archival register) Recommended
• relatedencoding="MARC21" Recommended

Subelements:

These most significant subelements are listed in recommended order:

• <did> Required by DTD See 3.3.1, Basic Description: The High-level <did>
• <controlaccess> Recommended See 3.3.2, Controlled Vocabulary Terms
• <descgrp type="admininfo"> Required See 3.3.3, Administrative Information
• <bioghist> Recommended See 3.3.4, Biographical Sketches and Agency Histories
• <scopecontent> Required See 3.3.5, Scope and Content Note
• <arrangement> Recommended See 3.3.6, Arrangement
• <dsc> Required See 3.3.7, Description of Subordinate Components
• <descgrp type="add"> See 3.3.8, Adjunct Descriptive Data

See Tag Library for full list of valid subelements.

Tagging Example 1:

All major subelements include head tags

Display Of Tagging Example 1:

Collection Summary
Selected Search Terms
Administrative Information
Biographical Note
Scope and Content Note
Organization and Arrangement of Papers
Container List
Appendix 

Table of Contents generated from headings of major <archdesc> subelements

Comments:

Attributes:

• The LEVEL attribute, required by the DTD, is usually set as level="collection," as when entire collection is described in the finding aid. If only one series of the collection is described in the finding aid, use level="series." See Tag Library for full list of values.
• Set the attribute type="register" for a standard archival register as created at LC. See Tag Library for full list of values.
• Set the related encoding attribute to relatedencoding="MARC21."

Recommended order:

• Exceptions will occur in the recommended order, as listed above. For instance, most elements formerly subordinate to <add>, such as indexes and bibliographies, are most commonly found at the end of a finding aid. Other such elements, like <relatedmaterial> and <separatedmaterial>, may be more appropriate to the front part of the finding aid, and can be used where most appropriate. This new version of the EAD DTD (EAD 2002) accommodates more flexible order by unbundling the <add> and <admininfo> subelements, but puts more demand on output specifications in handling a great number of element configurations.

Subelements:

• A number of elements are available at the <archdesc> level but are also commonly appropriate at the component level. These include <note>, <odd>, and <arrangement>.
• The <daogrp> element can also be used at the <archdesc> level. This might be an image concordance for all <dao> elements in the finding aid. An image sampler would be encoded at the Collection Summary level, and component-level archival objects would be encoded at the appropriate level. See Sections 3.3.1.11, Digital Archival Object Group, and 3.3.7.4, Expanded Description of Components for treatment of <daogrp> in these cases.

Repeatable: no
Order: follows <eadheader> and optional <frontmatter>
Revision Date: 05/01/08

 Back to Top