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Reference

2 A Very Brief Introduction to Finding Aids

Melissa Chim

Finding aids are an integral part of archives and special collections. Some archives offer detailed finding aids, and others use simplified versions. Either way, finding aids are an important tool for librarians, archivists, and researchers. But what is a finding aid anyway? A finding aid is a guide that librarians and archivists use to see a specific collection’s contents before starting to pull boxes from the archive’s shelves. It also contains information about the collection’s provenance, its historical context, and copyright information. Often finding aids are available on an archive’s website, where they are free for students and researchers to view before their library visit too.

Depending on the size of the collection, a finding aid may be relatively short or may run for several pages. For example, a photography collection representing a hundred photographers will have a very long Creator list! Here are the entries a reader will encounter when reading a finding aid:

  • Descriptive Summary: This section explains basic information about the collection and the people involved.
    • Creator: This refers to the main subjects of the collection.
    • Title: This is given to the collection by the author of the finding aid.
    • Dates: The time period(s) when the materials were published or made available.
    • Abstract: A brief and concise summary of the collection’s contents and their importance.
    • Extent: Refers to how large the collection is, often in linear feet or the number of archival boxes used to house the collection.
    • Call phrase: The call number delineating the collection’s location in the archive.
  • Historical Note: A brief note placing the collection in its historical context.
  • Scope and Contents: A written description of what can be found in the collection.
  • Inventory: A comprehensive list of all items in a collection along with their folder location.
  • Access points: A comprehensive list of search terms that reflect the main themes, people, and places within a collection. Standardization of these search terms is important, and many archivists use Library of Congress Subject Headings.
    • A. Subject Names: Refers to who donated the collection.
    • B. Document Type: Examples include photographs, postcards, letters, etc.
    • C. Subject Organizations: These include any businesses, universities, churches, or other institutions represented by the collection.
    • D. Subject Topics: These include specific themes, places, or groups of people. For example, Beaches, New York state, Kings County.
    • E. Subject Places: These refer to specific locations. For example, Brooklyn Heights (New York, N.Y.).
  • Administrative Information: This section answers questions regarding a collection’s use, provenance, and proper citation.
    • Conditions Governing Access: For example, open to users without restriction.
    • Conditions Governing Use: A note on copyright. For example, “The intellectual property rights for these photographs remain with the respective photographers. The photographs will enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the creator.”
    • Preferred Citation: For researchers who plan to cite the collection in their work. For example, Identification of item, date (if known); Collection title, Call number, Box and Folder number; Institution name.
    • Related Materials: Other examples of collections that have similar items or themes.
    • Immediate Source of Acquisition: For example, Gift of X family, 2007.

Standardization plays an important role in the creation of finding aids. Here are three archives standardizing systems that one will encounter the most often:

ISAD(G): The General International Standard Archival Description identifies twenty-six data elements to include.[1] ISAD(G) is “both a schema – defining a set of elements for description – and a content standard, as it also offers guidance for how to provide data within the element set.”[2] This set of international standards was the framework from which United States standards (DACS and EAD) were developed.

Describing Archives: A Content Standard: This standard upholds the “key principle of respect de fonds, or keeping collections separate from those originating from other sources and keeping them in original order whenever possible.”[3] DACS also focuses on hierarchical organization “with context and description inherited from higher levels of description, allowing the whole and the parts to be described and understood in context. This approach can be contrasted with item-level description in which the description for one document is able to stand alone, as one commonly sees, for example, in library catalogs.”[4]

EAD: Encoded Archival Description (EAD Official Site, Library of Congress) (loc.gov): Similar to DACS, EAD relies on hierarchical organization:

The components of an EAD encoded finding aid include the front matter with elements such as a scope and contents note which summarize the entire collection. At the lower levels of the hierarchy, more specific description can be provided at that level, without the need to repeat information from higher levels. For example, a series named “Plays” means that each box within that series – and each folder within the box – does not need to include the word plays for the user to understand that is what the item is.[5]

The organization of a finding aid allows librarians to access the information they need about a collection quickly. The various headings detailed above give librarians the opportunity to look up specific information without having to read the entire document. Yet, the option to read the entire document is available! Researchers often read the entire finding aid to determine whether the collection has the items they are interested in. After determining which items a patron needs, librarians will use the call phrase to locate them in the archives. They will bring them to the reading room, which is a secure area in the library specifically dedicated to interacting with archival materials. Researchers may have to make multiple appointments to see multiple items. Finding aids are a great addition to any librarian’s toolkit! To see a sample finding aid created by the Society of American Archivists, visit this link: Appendix: Sample Annotated Finding Aid | Society of American Archivists.

Bibliography

Boyd, Morag. “Standards for Archives.” Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology 43, no. 2 (January 2017): 24–28. https://doi.org/10.1002/bul2.2017.1720430210, archived July 24, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240724144434/https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bul2.2017.1720430210

ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description. (2nd ed.). Stockholm, Sweden: International Council on Archives, 2000. http://www.ica.org/en/isadg-general-international-standard-archival-description-second-edition, archived July 24, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240724144732/https://www.ica.org/resource/isdf-international-standard-for-describing-functions/

Library of Congress. Encoded Archival Description. (n.d). www.loc.gov/ead/, archived July 24, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240724144925/https://www.loc.gov/ead/

Library of Congress. Subject and Genre/Form Headings. (n.d). https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/, archived July 17, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240717042653/https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/

Society of American Archivists. Appendix: Sample Annotated Finding Aid. (n.d). https://www2.archivists.org/usingarchives/appendix, archived June 13, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240613202900/https://www2.archivists.org/usingarchives/appendix

Society of American Archivists. Describing Archives: A Content Standard. (2nd ed.). 2015. www2.archivists.org/standards/DAC, archived July 24, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240724145658/https://www2.archivists.org/standards/DAC

Endnotes

[1] Morag Boyd, “Standards for Archives.” Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology 43, no. 2 (January 2017): 24, https://doi.org/10.1002/bul2.2017.1720430210, archived July 24, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240724144434/https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bul2.2017.1720430210

[2] Boyd, “Standards for Archives,” 24.

[3] Boyd, 25.

[4] Boyd, 26.

[5] Boyd, “Standards for Archives, 26.

About the author

name: Melissa Chim

institution: Excelsior University

Melissa Chim is the Scholarly Communications Librarian for Excelsior University where she manages the library’s publishing platform and institutional repository. She also serves as an instructor for courses on information literacy and research methods. Her research interests include open education and teaching with primary sources. She is a SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow, a Society for Scholarly Publishing Fellow, and an ASAPbio Fellow.

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Archives & Primary Sources Handbook Copyright © 2025 by Veronica Denison, Sara K. Kearns, Ryan Leimkuehler, Irina Rogova is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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