Subject: Arrangement and description of archives
Course: Arrangement and description of archives
ECTS credits: 6
Language: Croatian
Duration: 1 semester
Status: elective
Method of teaching: 2 lecture hours and 2 hours of practical classes in archives
Prerequisite: none
Assessment: oral exam
Course description:
Principles of arrangement. Structure and organization of archives. Archival units: fonds, series, file, document. Relationships between archival units: hierarchical and horizontal relationships, internal and external relationships, principles of forming and connecting units.
Logical and physical structure of archival unit. Displaying logical structure. Forming and signing physical units. Linking logical and physical units. Creating of arrangement plan.
Organization of arranging. Informational display of the structure of archives. Arrangement analysis.
Purpose and objectives of archival description. Description during records creation (registry, metadata systems). Function of description in managing records. Description in archives. Theory of description of archives as a prerequisite for creation of finding aids. Description and searching and retrieval of a unit. Description and arrangement. Multilevel description.
ISAD(G) – General International Standard Archival Description. ISAAR(CPF) – International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families.
Analysis of unit of description and choosing access points. Authority control. Thesauri, controlled dictionaries and indexes in description of archives.
Descriptions of special formats: maps, plans and blueprints; manuscripts; photographs; printed archives; unconventional formats; sound recordings; video recordings; microforms; electronic records; moving images.
Introduction into finding aids. Historical development of creating finding aids. Typology of finding aids in archives. Finding aids in record offices. Metadata. Archival finding aids.
Course objectives:
Students are acquainted with the structure of archival fonds, types and structure of records grouping, they adopt the principles and methods of analysis and organization of archival entities, they learn to arrange archives. They are acquainted with standards and methodology of description of archives, they learn to describe and index various types of archives and to form finding aids.
Quality check and success of the course: Quality check and success of the course will be done by combining internal and external evaluation. Internal evaluation will be done by teachers and students using survey method at the end of semester. The external evaluation will be done by colleagues attending the course, by monitoring and assessment of the course.
Reading list:
1. B. Stulli (ur.), Priručnik iz arhivistike, Zagreb, Hrvatski državni arhiv, 1977: 107-236.
2. ISAD(G) Opća međunarodna norma za opis arhivskoga gradiva, 2. izd., Zagreb, Hrvatski državni arhiv, 2001.
3. ISAAR(CPF) Međunarodna norma arhivističkoga normiranoga zapisa za pravne i fizičke osobe i obitelji, Drugo izdanje.
Additional reading list:
1. Christine Nougaret, Les instruments de recherche dans les archives. La documentation Française, Paris 1999.
2. J. Ellis (ur.), Keeping archives, Port Melbourne, 1993.2
3. Rules for Archival Description, Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Ottawa 2000. (URL: http://www.cdncouncilarchives.ca/archdesrules.html.)