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Arrangement, description and cataloguing.
Archival work carried out by salaried staff, respecting the archival bond and the principle of provenance. What results is a publishable finding aid, not a list of boxes.
Intended for
Libraries, theatres, museums, foundations, municipal historical archives, diocesan and capitular archives, business and family archives.
In brief
- 01What we do
- Survey, description and arrangement respecting the archival bond, through to a publishable finding aid.
- 02Who it is for
- Libraries, museums, theatres, foundations, and municipal, diocesan and corporate historical archives.
- 03What the institution keeps
- A finding aid conforming to national standards, in open and exportable formats: no tie to our system.
Method
The work proceeds from the principle of provenance and respect for original order. Where original order has been irretrievably lost, the reconstruction is declared and justified in the introduction to the finding aid, stating the criteria applied and the sources used to reconstruct the series.
Description is carried out at file level, with item-level treatment of series of particular significance, identified in agreement with the holding institution.
Stages of the work
01Survey
Measurement of extent in linear metres, assessment of storage conditions and environmental parameters, identification of documentary groups and of the strata left by earlier arrangements.
02Description
Analytical description of units recording covering dates, content, original and later shelfmarks, extent, condition and archival notes.
03Arrangement
Reconstruction of series and sub-series, definition of the hierarchical structure of the holding, placement of units and assignment of final shelfmarks.
04Appraisal and disposal
A disposal proposal drawn up under the applicable retention schedules, with an analytical list, submitted to the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendency for authorisation. Nothing is destroyed before authorisation is granted.
05Finding aid
Drafting of the administrative history, the archival note on arrangement criteria and the analytical inventory, with indexes of names, places and subjects.
06Rehousing
Rehousing in materials meeting conservation standards, labelled with the final shelfmark and its place in the structure.
Descriptive standards
The standard is agreed with the holding institution and declared in the finding aid. Description is produced in exportable form, so that the institution is not tied to the contractor’s information system.
- ISAD(G)
- Multi-level archival description, from fonds to item, following the general international standard.
- ISAAR(CPF)
- Creators treated in authority records kept separate from the description of the material, with relationships between agents and documentary complexes.
- Italian Unified Information System for Archival Superintendencies
- Data produced in a form that can be contributed to the system, where the holding institution so requests.
- Cataloguing standards of the Italian Central Institute for Cataloguing
- Applied to printed material and to non-archival heritage objects found within the holding.
Holdings under statutory protection
Work on holdings declared of particularly important historical interest requires prior and continuous dialogue with the territorially competent Archival and Bibliographic Superintendency. That dialogue is an ordinary part of the method, not a subsequent formality.
Documentation of the work — preliminary report, arrangement criteria, disposal proposal, finding aid — is prepared in a form suitable for submission to the supervisory body.
Safeguards
- Salaried archival staff, not recruited contract by contract.
- Compliance with the Italian Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, Legislative Decree 42 of 22 January 2004.
- No material destroyed without an authorising decision.
- Description produced in open, exportable formats: the institution retains full control of its descriptive data.
- Management systems certified to ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001.
Relationship with digitisation
Arrangement comes before digitisation. Digitising a disordered holding produces a mass of images with no descriptive anchor, which the institution will have to bring back into order later and at greater cost.
Where the engagement also covers digital reproduction, images are linked to the description at file level, so that the finding aid remains the means of access and the images serve as its apparatus.
Preliminary assessment
A reliable estimate of duration and cost requires seeing the material. The preliminary survey concludes with a report on extent, condition and the difficulties identified.
Arrange a survey