Re: [ARSCLIST] Archival Description of Sound Recordings

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dean Jeffrey" <deanjeffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> I'm a grad student, working on a project concerning standards for
> archival description of collections of sound recordings.
>
> I've looked at IASA, the Association of Canadian Archivists' RAD, and
> have read a lot of books and articles by Smiraglia (concerning both
> cataloging and archival description.) All of these standards seem valid,
> but I was wondering what rules for description (if any) are followed by
> people who are actually archiving sound recordings.
>
> For those of you that have written finding aids for your sound
> collections, are there any rules for the description of archives that
> you follow? Or do you make up your own? And if you make up your own, do
> you use some archival standard (like APPM or DACS) as a starting point?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "archival description of collections
of sound recordings." Does this apply to an archive consisting only
of one type (physical, content-wise or both) of sound recording?
It would seem to me, in the case, the description would be "A collection
of <format> containing <type of content> which exists to provide
<the reason for the material having been collected in the first place>."

I have a private "archive" of some 32,000 78 rpm records, and my
description can range from a more formal one all the way to "all
that <deleted> down the basement..." depending on to whom I'm
speaking and why!

Steven C. Barr