A contribution to the ICA/EASTICA Workshop on Archives Description Standards,

Hong Kong : 18-24 February, 1997

by Hugo L. P. Stibbe

Before getting into the substance of the ICA standards for archival description, I like to explain the context of these standards, where they came from and why they were seen to be necessary. This gives an understanding of the reason why they were subsequently developed.

Much of the history of the development of these standards may be found in the introductions to the three documents which were produced by the Ad Hoc Commission during its life span from 1990 to 1996¹ :

The work of 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. The meeting was hosted and sponsored by the National Archives of Canada in cooperation with the International Council on Archives.²

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 and the United States, a general lack of consistency in archival descriptive practices was revealed. 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 archivisits on stand alone microcomputers, using off-the-shelf software, such as word processors, database management software e.g., dBASE. Such efforts only needed consistency of approach for the single, small, stand alone projects run on these microcomputers. Examples of such projects are the making of inventories, lists, or stand alone and unique 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 holding 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 what the state affairs regarding archival descriptive standardization efforts were in the various countries from which speakers came. It became clear that such efforts were at most 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.

Nevertheless, the meeting came to an unanimous conclusion that there was a need for international archival descriptive standards and passed a resolution asking the ICA to establish a working group. This working group became the ICA Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards (ICA/DDS).³

With the general lack of understanding of what archival descriptive standards were all about and what was to be standardized, as revealed by the Ottawa Meeting of Experts, the second part of resolution 2 of that meeting fortunately gave some guidance. It asked that the working group "... prepared draft standards and rules for the description of archives at the fonds/group/collection level for the consideration of the international community." It did not explicitly mention that these standards were to standardize finding aids. The guidance was still vague. The consultative group which met on Unesco's request in Paris in December of 1989 therefore decided that it would perhaps be advisable to first develop a statement of principles regarding archival description before attempting to standardize it. The group also was asked to develop a work plan. On the basis of the two documents, Unesco was prepared to fund the project, which it subsequently did over the entire life of the Ad Hoc Commission.

The Statement of Principles Regarding Archival Description was the result of the effort. It was the first document developed by the Ad Hoc Commission. It is, consequently, a very important document because it sets out the basic thinking behind the two standards which were subsequently developed, the ISAD(G) and the ISAAR(CPF). It also set the pattern for the development process of the standards such as the procedure for obtaining the input from the international professional archival community.

A basic unwritten principle which was unanimously adopted by the members of the Ad Hoc Commission is that standards of this kind are developed by the profession, i.e., by professional archivists for consideration of use by archival institutions. For this reason, members on the Commission were selected for their expertise and not, as a first criterium, as representatives from their institutional constituencies or, indeed, from any particular country or region. In this, I think the Ad Hoc Commission was different from other ICA bodies. I think and expect that it continues to be so in its successor body, the Committee on Archival Descriptive Standards.

In recognition of this principle, the Commission solicited input from the international professional archival community. After agreement on a draft, the Commission sent it out to all "B" members of the ICA, which are the various organizations which represent professional archivists. The draft was accompanied by the request to disseminate the document and an invitation to comment on the draft. The Commission determined that a deadline of half a year to obtain comments was both appropriate and sufficient. Comments received were compiled and taken into consideration in finishing a final document. With this rather generous time frame for comments, it is assumed that the standards which were developed carry a consensus for adoption or, at least, a tentative try-out on a national level.

The important points made by the Statement and which must be kept in mind when examining the ISAD(G) and the ISAAR(CPF) are stated in the preface of the Statement as follows : -

P. 5 The Commission recognizes

The second most important statements are in the definitions of the terms used. The definitions obtain the assumptions the Commission made and in the context of which the standards are formulated and ought to be read. In particular, the definition of what an archival description is, is important in this respect. It is defined in the glossary as a process as follows :

This definition uses the word fonds, which the Statement defines as :

Also, the distinction which is made between description and access points is, I think, something new to archives and archivists. See the definition of archival description above, and the definition of an access point which it defines as :

Access point A name, term, etc. by which a description may be searched, identified and retrieved.

Assumed here is that access points are under authority control. The meaning of this term is discussed under ISAAR(CPF) section of this presentation.

The Statement of Principles was adopted by the General Council of ICA at its meeting in Montreal during the XII^th International Congress on Archives in 1992.

The development of the first description standard, the ISAD(G), was based on the assumptions made in the Statement.

Some of the most important issues which surfaced during the debate when the Statement was developed are here stated in the form of questions which, perhaps, may be useful for discussion purposes at the end of this presentation. Answers to these questions will undoubtedly be important to the successor body of the ICA Ad Hoc Commission, the ICA Committee on Descriptive Standards, when it reviews the standards at their 5-year review cycle.

The Commission followed the same process in the development of the ISAD(G) as it did for the Statement of Principles. The purpose of the ISAD(G) is stated in the introduction. I.1 and I.2 as follows :

(a) ensure the creation of consistent, appropriate, and self explanatory descriptions;

(c) enable the sharing of authority data; and

(d) make possible the integration of descriptions from different repositories into a unified information system.

This latter point tries to acknowledge and emphasize that all archival description is fundamentally description of collectivities of material and that these collectivities may be organized in sub-collectivities which may be further subdivided, etc. Such organization is called arrangement (in English) classement (in French) and it is done on the basis of the principles of provenance and original order. Each collectivity or unit of arrangement becomes a unit of description. Thus, there may be many ‘units of description’ in a collectivity of archival material. These units of description, being divisions and subdivisions of the whole collectivity called a fonds, naturally have a hierarchical structure, and group themselves into hierarchical levels that have as a common characteristic the structure of a tree.

Before it enumerates and gives rules of each of the 26 elements of description that may be combined to constitute an archival description, the ISAD(G) first sets out rules for the units of description of these levels which it calls multilevel description and hence, multilevel description rules. These are fundamental because these rules set up the structure of an archival description as illustrated in the appendix which is like a tree. This schema is the same as in the Statement of Principles.

The rules of multilevel description do not prescribe a fixed set of levels in the hierarchy, nor compulses one to describe all levels even if they do occur in particular cases. Thus, one may add or subtract levels as each case demands. The appendix shows one possible occurrence as an example. Between the dotted lines in the schema it tries to indicate the most commonly occurring levels (most typical situations), even though there may be sub-levels at any level but the lowest. The names given to each level, i.e., series, files, items, are not necessarily current in different archival traditions. The labels in the schema are examples and may be valid only for the English language.

The ISAD(G) enumerates the fundamental principles of multilevel description as follows :

2.1 DESCRIPTION FROM THE GENERAL TO THE SPECIFIC

PURPOSE : To represent the context and the hierarchical structure of the fonds and its parts.

2.4 NON-REPETITION OF INFORMATION

These rules were designed to obtain a logical construct of descriptions which is supposed to be universal and both economical to implement and easy to adapt or adopt in the construction of finding aids. I can only elaborate some of its provisions here and will concentrate on those which I think are important. I trust that there will be questions on any aspect which I cannot discuss because of time restraint in a presentation such as this.

The ISAD(G) elaborates the concept of Unit of description from that given in the Statement of Principles. Where the Statement gives the general definition “Any archival entity being described”, the ISAD(G) further refines this to mean “A document or set of documents in any physical form, treated as an entity, and as such, forming the basis of a single description”. The boxes in the appendix represent units of arrangement which become the object of description. Thus each unit of arrangement is designated a unit of description. A description may therefore be made for a fonds as a whole and any of its parts, such as a series, sub-series, file or item.

The multilevel rules specify in 2.3 that the descriptions must be linked so that their relative relationship in the organizational structure of the fonds is made clear by lay-out or display (e.g., in a finding aid, on a computer screen or on the Internet). It is also clear that the rule which specifies not to repeat information already given at a higher level (rule 2.4) make the lower level descriptions dependent on the higher level ones. This too has consequences on the display if it is to be a contextual display. It means that any description from a lower level must be displayed with its higher level descriptions to make sense. Such displays are not very difficult to design for a finding aid, but much more difficult on a computer screen based on information in a database. The Internet World Wide Web HTML displays is a hypertext file, are ideally suited for such purposes. Parts of the description can be linked to its parents and/or child descriptions.

The ISAD(G) then sets out all the elements of description, one by one, and gives a purpose and a rule for each. It does this as described in its introduction I.4 :

It also points out that, of all the 26 elements, it considers a few as essential for international exchange. There are :

(a) reference code;

(b) title;

(c) date(s) of creation or date(s) of accumulation of the material in the unit of description

(d) extent of the unit of description; and

(e) level of description.

This latter statement is important as it is a clue to how essential the ICA/DDS considered the name of the creator to be. It is the link to the next standard the ICA/DDS developed, the ISAAR(CPF).

As a result of the work on the ISAD(G) and the comments received on the draft, the commission realized that it had only half a standard. The ISAD(G) is a standard description for the archival records or documents. Many of the comments pointed out that archival description is the sum total of description of the documents and the creators of those documents. The ISAD(G) did not adequately cover the latter. Thus, the commission decided to take on as its next project a standard description for creators of archival fonds and, at the same time, tackle the as yet unfamiliar topic for archivists of authority control for the names of those creators.

The ISAAR(CPF) : International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families is the result of that effort. Over the course of two further plenaries, again supported by another bi-annual grant from Unesco, the ISAAR(CPF) was developed, comments solicited and approved for publication in 1996 at its last meeting in Paris in November 1995.

The ISAAR(CPF) is a companion standard to the ISAD(G). If used, it should be in conjunction with the ISAD(G). It may also be used as a stand alone standard, but it was not meant to be used in this manner, nor designed by the Commission with that purpose in mind.

The difference between the two standards ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) is that the first captures information about the records (describes the archival materials) and the latter captures information about the creators of those records (describes the persons, corporate bodies and families that created records). The ISAAR(CPF) call this contextual information. Archivists have always seen the need, indeed the necessity, to capture contextual information because the records of which they are the custodians are primary source records. such records cannot be understood very well without knowing the context of their creation : who created the records, what kinds of functions (businesses, roles and responsibilities of government, church or private corporate entities) caused these records to be created, their associated activities, the administrative and documentary processes, etc. Unlike works, such as books, archival records are not self documenting. Thus, the ISAAR(CPF) tries to identify elements of description which capture this sort of information.

The contextual information needs to be attached to the creator entity in some fashion. The ISAAR(CPF)’s main anchor is the name of the creator in a standardized form. The ISAAR(CPF) calls the name of the creator in a standardized form, or a suitable standardized substitute for that name, an authoritative name or authority entry. All of the information that is captured for the creator entity in the elements outlined in the ISAAR(CPF) and including the authority entry, is called the authority record for that creator entity. You may well ask why do we need authority entries? That question is not so easily answered because it really falls outside the scope of this presentation or outside the scope of the ISAAR(CPF). The short answer, and the indirect answer given by the ISAAR(CPF), is that it is needed when you wish to use these names as access points. The ISAAR(CPF) defines an access point as : Access point. A name, keyword, index term, etc. by which a description may be searched, identified or retrieved.

How one creates an authoritative name or authority entry, is left to national or institutional conventions or rules. It is obvious that the ISAAR(CPF) cannot possibly handle or give instructions on all the different ways archival institutions or national conventions create indexes. Indexing is a science. One of my staff attended a week long course on indexing a couple of weeks ago given by the Universitsymbol 233 \f "Kino MT" \s 12e} de Quebsymbol 233 \f "Kino MT" \s 12e}csymbol 224 \f "Kino MT" \s 12a} Montrsymbol 233 \f "Kino MT" \s 12e}al. Instead, the ISAAR(CPF) instructs to record the rules or conventions which are used to create the authority entry in 3.2. The national rule book we use in Canada, Rules for Archival Description (RAD)⁴ devotes about half of its entire contents to rules for the creation of such authority entries or access points. The better indexes capture also variant forms of the name, and related names and links them by means of see and see also references. The ISAAR(CPF) instructs to capture this information also, in 1.5 and 1.6 respectively.

The general lay-out of the ISAAR(CPF) reflects the organization of the information needed for both capturing the authority entry portion and the contextual information. This information is followed by notes which document the information given in the record. Thus the authority record is made up of three main areas of information as follows :

1.1 Identity Code

2.1 Corporate Bodies

3.1 Archivist’s Note

The AUTHORITY CONTROL AREA contains the elements of description which record authoritative access point information, including any references from and to other names or the same name in different forms; the INFORMATION AREA contains the elements of description which capture the contextual information about the creator; and the NOTE AREA contains the elements which capture documentary information which the creator of the authority record must supply so that the information in the record may be authenticated and verified.

Finally a few words about how the ISAAR(CPF) may be used. The introduction has a section which outlines the use quite clearly (paragraphs I.16 to I.20). Note that without rules or conventions, one cannot use the ISAAR(CPF) because there would be no anchor to which one can attach the contextual information (I.20). Thus, the authority entry itself (1.3) and the rules and/or conventions used to create the entry in 1.3 must be recorded in 3.2 as a minimum requirement for the use of the ISAAR(CPF).

By means of examples, particularly those in 3.2, the ISAAR(CPF) tries to encourage the undertaking of the development of conventions and/or rules on a national or regional or intra national basis rather than an institutional one. Institutional rules are not considered standards in the conventional sense of that word. Note that there are no examples in 3.2 of rules which are institutional.

In view of the difficulty of implementing the ISAAR(CPF) without national standards for the recording of authority entries, a discussion of the relationship between ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) illustrated with examples would be impossible. The examples would have to be drawn from an existing national standard. It cannot be detached from it. Nevertheless, I would like to discuss these relationships because, from the experience of the ICA/DDS, gained in the development of the ISAAR(CPF) and the comments received, it appears that the concept of authority control and associated work is new to archives and archivists. I feel that if I would leave the presentation of the ISAAR(CPF) at this point, I would be negligent in my commitment to explain its workings.

Therefore, I have chosen a national standards which exists and with which I am most familiar, to illustrate the relationships between the ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF). It is the Canadian Rules for Archival Description or RAD for short. Furthermore, I have selected an integrated set of examples from a finding aid which was produced in the very early stages of the development of RAD but nevertheless compliant with RAD, A Record of Service : A Guide to Holdings of the Central Archives of The United Church of Canada/ Project coordinator Ruth Dyck Wilson with Peter D. James. - Toronto : United Church of Canada, Victoria University Archives, 1992. - Occasional Paper Number One.

The following descriptions and associated authority records are extracted for that purpose from the finding aid mentioned.

14 : Methodist Church (Canada) Missionary Society fonds. - [ca. 1851 - ca. 2930],

predominant 1884-1925. - 15.34 m.

Fonds consists of the following series : General Board of Missions, 1865-1925;

correspondence of the General Secretaries, 1868-1923; foreign mission records, 1888-1950; home mission records, 1906-1927; financial records, 1899-1930; quarterly returns of aboriginal institutes and day schools, 1902-1923; printed ephemera; and constitution and financial records of the Superannuation Fund for Lay Missionaries of Foreign Fields, 1919-1929.

Finding aid: See series descriptions.

See also United Church of Canada Board of Overseas Missions fonds (502) for records of missions continued by the United Church after the 1925 Union.

Location Number : See series descriptions.

I. Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada. Missionary Society.

II. Methodist Church of Canada. Missionary Society.

¹ The fonds to subseries examples are from fonds 14 appearing in A Record of Service : A Guide to Holdings of the Central Archives of The United Church of Canada/Project coordinator Ruth Dyck Wilson with Peter D. James. - Toronto : United Church of Canada, Victoria University Archives, 1992. - Occasional Paper Number One. The file and subsequent level descriptions as well as the authority records have been kindly supplied by Ruth Dyck Wilson, the Project Coordinator of the above finding aid.

14/3/1 : West China Mission collection. - 1891-1931, predominant 1891-1925.

- 2.2 m.

The Canadian Methodist Mission in West China was established in 1891.

Subseries consists of correspondence of the General Secretaries of the Methodist Church (Canada) Missionary Society; copybook of W. J. Mortimore; minutes of the West China Mission Council; reports, financial records, property registers, manuscripts of historical and biographical studies, and other material relating to the evangelistic, pastoral, educational and medical work of the West China Mission.

Finding aid : 19.

Location Number : 78.096C.

I. Canadian Methodist Mission of West China. Mission Council.

14/3/1/1 : Canadian Methodist Mission Property Register, West China.

- 1899-1923. - 1cm.

File consists of Canadian Methodist Mission Property Register pages,

West China for Chengtu College University and Chengtu City.

NOTE : Even though the finding aid from which the fonds to sub-series examples were copied has (topical) subject added entries, these have been left off in the example.

Like the display in the finding aid from which these examples were extracted, the above display of descriptive records attempts to show the part to whole hierarchy by indentation as well as by the numbering scheme given to the levels of description and the parts of the fonds. Each level of description is indented one unit of indentation from its immediate parent. Thus, if there were more than one series description, it would be at the same indentation as the series description show.

The numbering scheme, fonds numbers, series numbers, sub-series numbers, etc., also show the hierarchy. The fonds example here is fonds number 14. The series in this fonds are numbered 14/1, 14/2, 14/3, etc. The sub-series are a further division of this number, e.g., 14/1/1, 14/3/2, meaning sub-series 1 of series 1 of fonds 14; sub-series 2 of series 3 of fonds 14, etc. This numbering subdivision continues to the lowest level of description given in the example, the item level description.

The National Archives of Canada has decided to distinguish between a primary access point, being the access point for the creator of the fonds as it appears in the title of the fonds, and additional access points (additional to the primary one), which may be additional creators (for example, earlier or predecessor bodies, members of a family of a family fonds). This distinction is a refinement of the rules for choice of access points in the Canadian Rules for Archival Description which do not distinguish between a primary access point and additional access points. The example shows the primary access point as the authority entry in bold preceding the title of the fonds. The additional access points, in their authority entry form, are recorded in a tracing, which is a record of such additional access points appearing at the end for each description for which they are made. Descriptions which do not carry additional access points do not have a tracing. There is only one primary access point for a fonds and, therefore, for all its parts as described.

The associated authority records are, in this case, in an authority file. Each authority record carries the authority entry, as specified by the ISAD(CPF)1.3. The authority record is linked to those relevant descriptive records where they are needed as an access point. Thus, in a larger file of descriptive records, with descriptions of many fonds and their parts, an authority record may be linked to many descriptive records.

The next table show the same set of examples labelled for each element of the description. The labels are the relevant ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) elements.

² The fonds to subseries examples are from fonds 14 appearing in A Record of Service : A Guide to Holdings of the Central Archives of The United Church of Canada/Project coordinator Ruth Dyck Wilson with Peter D. James. - Toronto : United Church of Canada, Victoria University Archives, 1992. - Occasional Paper Number One. The file and subsequent level descriptions as well as the authority records have been kindly supplied by Ruth Dyck Wilson, the Project Coordinator of the above finding aid.

All the elements of the authority records are associated with the ISAAR(CPF) whereas the elements of the descriptive records have both ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) representations. The relationship between descriptive records and authority records are in those elements in the descriptive records which have ISAAR(CPF) elements identified, sometimes in addition to ISAD(G) elements. These elements form the links between the descriptive record and the authority record. These links are illustrated in the relationship diagram below :

On the left side of this diagram (left of the dotted line) a conventional multilevel hierarchical box diagram appears like the ones that appear in both the Statement of Principles and the ISAD(G). By means of shading, a single hierarchy, from fonds, though series, sub-series, file and item has been selected to illustrate its contents, representing five levels of description. The contents are the set of descriptions in the example. The actual descriptions appear linked to the boxes in “call-out labels”. Thus, each box represents a description as shown, including the primary access point (shown in the fonds box) and the additional access points shown as a tracing in each description that has them.

On the right hand side of the diagram (to the right of the dotted line) the authority file is shown with a set of boxes, each representing an authority record. Again, by means of call-out labels the content of each box is shown, representing an authority record. The contents of such an archival authority record may include the contextual information which in the examples in the above tables is shown in the descriptive records in smaller type, i.e., the administrative history or, in the case of persons, the biographical information. Normally, when an automated linked authority file is employed in a system, the contextual administrative history or biographical information is part of the authority record, not the descriptive record. Systems can be designed to pull in this information from the authority record to which it is linked upon display of a descriptive record. In this manner, an authority record may be updated, corrected and otherwise maintained without having to change anything in the descriptive record. This then may be done only once in one place whereupon all descriptive records that use this authority will display the corrected up to date information.

The relationship diagram shows that all references, such as see and see also references are made within the authority file. Thus, if someone searches on a name which is not the authorized form of the name, he/she will find the name, but will automatically be referred via a see reference to the authorized form of the name. The diagram shows this by a one way arrow. Boxes that contain see references have no arrows entering it, only arrows exiting. Related names are also handled within the authority file by a two way reference or see also reference. It is clear from the diagram that see also references are made from an authorized form of a name to another authorized form of a name. Both names are authority entries. The diagram shows this by a two way arrow.

Systems designed for searching on nominal access points for creators, such as the system being implemented at the National Archives of Canada, have automated linked authority files, where administrative histories and biographical sketches are linked to their relevant authority records and searching for such names automatically start in the authority file. Hits will lead automatically to the relevant descriptive records to which the authority record has been linked, bringing together, in this case, all descriptions with a common provenance. Systems using authority files with internal referencing, that is, indicating which are the authorized forms and which are not, and then making references from the non-authorized to the authorized form (vocabulary control) are called pre-coordinated systems.

The system also allows free non-vocabulary controlled searching on fields of descriptive records which have been indexed. Not all fields in the system are necessarily indexed. This is what is generally referred to as free text searching. Free text searching does not guarantee that all relevant material will be retrieved. In such a search a researcher does not know what he/she missed, because there is no way that a system call tell. Many people are proponents of free text searching and think that this is all that a system needs. The problem is that they think that when something is retrieved, it is all there is or, when the system returns with a message saying that there were no hits, that there are no names, references or descriptions for material matching their search query in the system. This is the most common misconception about free text searching. It is a failure to understand what free text searching is and what its limitations are. The sad thing is that such people are fully satisfied with the system’s performance and go away thinking they have fully exploited that source for their research, failing to understand that they may have missed just those references nobody else has found and which may be potentially the sources which would have made their research valuable. Pre-coordinated systems, provided that a sufficient number of access points are made which are fully cross referenced, do not have this draw back.

What is the future for the ICA standards for description? As stated previously, the ICA Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards was superseded by the Committee on Archival Descriptive Standards (ICA/CDS) as a result of the recommendation made by the Ad Hoc Commission to the Beijing Congress. The task of the Committee is to maintain the existing standards and review them on a five-year cycle. The ISAD(G) is up for review in 1999 and the ISAD(CPF) in 2001. It is therefore incumbent upon its users to keep the ICA/CDS informed of experiences gained in trying to implement the standards and to provide input for revision.

The Committee also will no doubt explore whether new standards should be developed and whether structures for the implementation of standards should be set up. Among the latter, there is already some investigation taking place to examine the feasibility of introducing an International Standard Archival Authority Number (ISAAN) which would introduce control and global uniqueness to authority entries in the same manner as this is done by an the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for book or book-like publications, and the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for serial publications. To this effect, contact was taken up with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), our kindred NGO in the library would, during the Beijing Congress, where IFLA met in the week preceding the ICA congress.

Further, there have been requests to look at standards for finding aids. This topic is still under investigation and might be brought to the table at the first plenary meeting of the ICA/CDS which is likely to be called this year with Italy as the venue.

There also remains the on-going task of making the international archival community familiar with the developed standards and to teach them, give information in formal presentations, seminars, colloquiums and workshops such as this one. The members and past members of the ICA/CDS and its predecessor are a dedicated group and in most cases willing to volunteer their services.

For the next three years, the secretariat of the Committee will remain at the National Archives of Canada at the Office of Archival Standards. Communications regarding the standards, the sale of them as well as input for review, should be sent to the secretariat at the following address :