On Arrangement and Description

[David Kay, MLS]

Hi everybody,
It was so nice to see so many NYDAWG members attending and participating at the MARAC conference last month! It truly is a testament to the fact that our perspectives on topics we have been discussing for the past 7 years have reached into every level of the archival profession, and our opinions matter!  We started very small and at a local ART meeting, but we are helping to chart a future at the local, state, regional and national level.  Kudos to NYDAWG!!

In Newark, a few NYDAWG members suggested that we set up another reading group session or put together a social event.  I think it's a great idea.  In fact, there is one pressing issue out there that I think would benefit from our input.

Last month, many of us received multiple emails regarding proposed changes to DACS.  The email read in part:

"For the last eighteen months, the Technical Subcommittee for DACS has been working toward a revision of the principles that underlie DACS. Although the current principles contain many important ideas, we have heard from archivists and archival educators that they are sometimes difficult to understand and often difficult to teach. Beyond this, it is important to us that archivists have a mechanism to know whether the archival description they create is principled -- we want for principles to be actionable and measurable."  Here's their proposed version link (on google docs)>
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ylCCzWh5yWNuIvakme3kKTJzFaWwjA1XMKLFRQvNhtk/edit

and here's the current version: http://www2.archivists.org/standards/DACS/statement_of_principles

I read their revisions and compared them with past versions a few weeks ago.  The most pressing issue, in my opinion, is that the proposed version focuses too heavily on description.  In fact, it has removed any form of the word "arrange" or "arrangement" from the text!  From my perspective, archivists cannot talk about describing archives without talking about Arrangement and respect des fonds, etc. This is a really significant change-- especially as we look at it from the perspective of Big Data, and I think we should talk about it.  (I could be wrong.)

I am inclined to submit comments, but if anyone else from NYDAWG is concerned and would be interested in discussing this, it might be a good opportunity for us to submit comments as a group.

Let me know if you have any interest or concerns or available dates to arrange a discussion.
Thanks!


dk
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