Describing Archives: A Content Standard

A product of the CUSTARD project (Canadian-U.S. Task Force on Archival Description), and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Describing archives : a content standard (DACS) is designed to facilitate consistent, appropriate, and self-explanatory description of archival materials and creators of archival materials. It can be applied to all types of material at all levels of description. Although the rules can be used for any type of descriptive output, examples of the application of the rules are provided for two widely used structural standards, MARC 21 and Encoded Archival Description (EAD). DACS replaces Archives, personal papers, and manuscripts (APPM) as a content standard for catalog records. The volume consists of three parts : "Describing archival materials," "Describing creators," and "Forms of names." Separate sections discuss levels of description and the importance of access points to the retrieval of descriptions. Appendices include a glossary, list of companion standards, and crosswalk to APPM, ISAD(G), ISAAR (CFP), MARC 21, and EAD. Also included is an index.