Standardization of the Archival Description

기록물 기술의 표준화

It is almost impossible to fulfill the users' information needs efficiently without any finding aids. The idiosyncrasy of archival materials had led the archivists to develop their own descriptive rules until the mid of 1980s. It was the arrival of computers and information networks that stimulated the archival community to standardize its variant descriptive practices. The primary purpose of the national and international archival description standards is to facilitate the cooperative archival data exchange. The Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards of the International Council on Archives adopted ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) in 1993 and in 1995 respectively. ISAD(G) guides the formulation of information in each of 26 elements that may be combined to constitute the description of an archival entity. ISAAR(CPF) is to give general rules for the establishment of archival authority records in descriptions of archival documents. Histories, structures and fundamental principles of those two international archival standards have been studies in this article. Most of the present archival description standards are based on the principle of provenance and the authority model. The instability of modern organizations and the digitalization of record keeping systems have been making the archivists to review these basic archival principles. It is suggested that Korean archival community should attempt to draft a national archival descriptive standard suitable to the Korean archival practice and Korean language in the framework of the international standards.