Finding Aid Notes

This section identifies the notes fields included in a finding aid’s front matter, detailing the required and optional elements, DACS rules, equivalent MARC fields (when applicable), and EAD tags. This section will explain which notes to add in ASpace, and includes recommendations about how to structure narrative sections. Also be sure to reference the Inclusive Description and Style Guidelines section of this manual to make sure your notes correspond to the Archival Processing unit’s description standards.

The Archives Portal automatically generates certain notes fields including:

Preferred Citation [DACS 7.1.5]

Repository Name and Location [DACS 2.2]

General Conditions Governing Access Statement [DACS 4.1]

Series Arrangement Note [DACS 3.2]

Required Fields

The Archival Processing unit requires the following notes fields in all finding aids:

Field Name DACS Rule EAD Tag MARC Field
Abstract Commentary note to DACS 3.1 <abstract> MARC 520
Conditions Governing Access DACS 4.1 <accessrestrict> MARC 506
Immediate Source of Acquisition DACS 5.2 <acqinfo> MARC 541
Administrative/Biographical History DACS 2.7 <bioghist> n/a
Processing Information DACS 7.1.8 <processinfo> MARC 583
Scope and Content DACS 3.1 <scopecontent> n/a

Abstract 

A finding aid’s abstract should serve as a clear and concise synopsis of the collection’s scope, content, and creator biography. Ideally, an abstract should be three sentences, briefly summarizing the collection creator’s biography in a single sentence, and the scope and content in two sentences. The abstract should clearly reveal what the collection documents, as well as the types of materials it contains. It is best to avoid simply listing out the formats a collection holds, and instead to clarify the types of records a researcher can expect to find. While DACS does not require abstracts, it is a required field at NYPL.

The abstract is the only narrative descriptive element that is included in the catalog record, since neither the scope and content or biographical/historical note have MARC equivalents in NYPL catalog records. The abstract, along with the access terms, have a great deal of significance in quickly summarizing a collection’s content in the catalog. Additionally, the abstract appears directly under a finding aid’s basic information in the archives portal, and may be the first descriptive details a researcher encounters. 

Conditions Governing Access

The purpose of this statement is to describe access restrictions imposed by NYPL, or those which were stipulated in the deed of gift or purchase agreement. DACS 4.1 describes when to use a Conditions Governing Access note. The archives portal will automatically generate a Conditions Governing Access statement for each curatorial division. If the collection you are processing has no special access restrictions, then you do not need to complete this field. The automatically generated standard access notes are listed in the ASpace User Guide. If the collection has additional restrictions, such as electronic records or audio and moving image material that is unavailable, or restrictions requested by the donor, then you must create a Conditions Governing Access note to explain the restrictions.

For collections containing audio and moving image, use the correct division statement, both in the front matter, and at the level immediately above the audio and moving image components. See the Description of Audio and Moving Image Material in ArchivesSpace section of this documentation for each division’s access note language.

When a component in a finding aid is restricted or should not be requested in the reading room, you use use the terms closed or Unavailable in the note at the component-level. This will assure that the item is not requestale in Aeon.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This field describes the source from which NYPL acquired the collection, the date it was acquired, and whether it was purchased or donated. A typical Immediate Source of Acquisition statement is constructed liked this: Purchased [or donated] from [by] [donor/seller name] in [year]. This information is found in the deed of gift or purchase agreement, which is located in the collection’s acquisition record (or in the dossier for legacy collections). For further guidance on this note, see DACS 5.2.

Administrative/Biographical History

Although you most likely already drafted a solid Administrative/Biographical History note in your processing proposal, it is common to encounter additional pertinent information as you process the collection. Therefore, your note will often change slightly from its initial iteration. Remember that it is not your job to construct an overly detailed biography of the collection’s creator. Instead, you should aim to summarize the collection creator’s history in a manner that reflects the content of the collection.

Typically an Administrative/Biographical History is written in chronological order, and includes the creator’s date and place of birth, or the founding members and date of creation, if the collection’s creator is a corporate body. The Biographical/Historical note should also include the creator’s activities as they relate to the materials held in the collection, or the primary functions of the institution for corporate bodies. It is also recommedned that you include the individuals with whom the creator collaborated, the creator’s current activities, and the date of death/dissolution if known/applicable.

DACS 2.7 lays out the guidelines for writing a Biographical/Historical note for various types of collections, and includes guidance on what types of details should be included, as well as what belongs in different note fields. In general, collections from famous and well-documented individuals do not require extensive biographical details because that information is easily attainable elsewhere. Your Biographical/Historical note should be sourced from the collection materials as much as possible. When you need to verify certain dates or facts, consult external primary source databases that index documents such as census records, draft cards, and death certificates. The Archival Processing unit has compiled a list of recommended resources for this purpose.

If you use external sources to write your Biographical/Historical note, it is good practice to compile your sources and research, and to save this information in the acquisition folder. When applicable, you can choose to cite your sources using Chicago Style citations at the end of your Biographical/Historical note. This is generally not necessary.

For most finding aids the only Administrative/Biographical History note will be at the collection level. It is very uncommon and not usually necessary to add additional biographical notes to the series or subseries levels of a finding aid. If the collection was created or assembled by multiple individuals, you should describe all of them and their relationships to each other in the Administrative/Biographical History note. 

When writing the biographical note, make sure you are describing individuals using the terms and identities they would use to describe themselves. Avoid using overly laudatory language when writing a biography,1 and also be sure to not conceal problematic or racist histories when these are known. It is okay to be uncomfortable with a creator’s biography, but it is not okay to allow this discomfort to prevent you from constructing a historically accurate biography.2

When working with additions being processed as a discrete collection, or if the materials are separated from a collection with an existing finding aid on the archives portal, it is often preferable to reuse the existing administrative/biographical history note. If you do use the existing note, you may still need to edit the note for clarity, or modify it to correspond more accurately with the materials you are describing. If you reuse existing description, you must always attribute the note to its original author. Examples of finding aids that utilize this practice include:

If there is additional interesting information that you encountered during processing that is outside the scope of an Administrative/Biographical History note, you can always include these details in a Wikipedia article and mention them in your closing memo. Consult the Updating and Creating Wikipedia Entries and Closing Memo sections of this manual for more information.

Processing Information

All finding aids must include a Processing Information note, which states the name of the archivist that processed the collection, and the year(s) it was processed. All processing notes must be formatted like this with EAD tags: Processed by <name>Archivist Name</name> in <date>Year</date>.DACS 7.1.8 contains more information on processing notes.

Scope and Content

A finding aid’s scope and content note is the central tenet of a collection’s description, serving as the core narrative to convey the types of materials that comprise a collection, and the function of those materials. The scope and content note should be utilized to describe why the records were created, how they were used, and what activities they chronicle. It is also a space to describe the types of materials the collection holds. 

A scope and content note should be structured hierarchically, beginning with a general overview of the collection, and using successive paragraphs to address each subsequent level. Begin your note with the most high-level information, such as the collection’s date range and a synopsis of what information the collection conveys. This opening paragraph should be similar to what you would include in an abstract, and the following paragraphs should get progressively more granular in a manner that adequately describes what the collection holds, and also explains this in a way that mirrors how the collection is arranged. 

The focus of your scope and content note should be on why the records were created, their value to the individual who created them, and what events, subjects, or topics the collection documents. While it can be useful to note that a collection contains certain genres of material, it is not advisable or useful to simply list format types, or to go into a great level of detail about the specific media formats held in a collection.

The amount of detail included in a scope and content note depends upon the degrees of hierarchy and levels of description the collection requires. The Levels of Description section of this documentation is included to help you determine how much description is necessary in your finding aid. If you choose to use series and/or subseries, then the scope and content note in the front matter should contain only a high-level description of the collection as a whole, and more detailed description of the materials held within each series or subseries should be relegated to the series or subseries-level scope and content notes. In multilevel description, you should avoid repeating the same information you stated at a higher level of the finding aid. DACS Requirements for Multilevel Description indicates that higher-level description is inherited by each subsequent level. 

In archival description it is just as important to note what is not found in the collection, as it is to describe what is contained in the boxes, folders, and files of a collection. The context of certain files may be unclear, or noticeable omissions may be present. Always try to be cognisant of what you choose to describe, and consider if you may be inadvertently excluding marginalized or underrepresented voices. Attempt to highlight silences when you encounter them, and consider the power dynamics that may have resulted in these exclusions. 3

DACS 3.1 provides general guidance on writing an effective and succinct scope and content note. 

  1. Jarret Drake criticizes this pratice writing that “In this note, archivists often write massive memorials and monuments to wealthy, white, cisgendered and heterosexual men, including selective details about the creator that have minimal bearing on the records, and instead serve to valorize and venerate white western masculinity. Jarrett M. Drake, “RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description,” On Archivy, April 7, 2016, https://medium.com/on-archivy radtech-meets-radarch-towards-a-new-principle-for-archives-and-archival-description-568f133e4325. ↩

  2. Archives for Black lives suggests “Do not let your discomfort with the terms censor the material. It is okay to be uncomfortable with racist material. It is not okay to privilege your discomfort above accurate description.” Alexis A. Antracoli et al., “Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist Description Resources,” October 2019,https://github.com/a4blip/A4BLiP/tree/master/Resources. ↩

  3. Tonia Sutherland emphasizes that “Just as archivists create ‘the archive,’ so, too, do they influence what narratives and stories can and cannot emerge from the archives.” Tonia Sutherland, “Archival Amnesty: In Search of Black American Transitional and Restorative Justice,” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1, no. 2 (June 5, 2017): 11, doi:10.24242/jclis.v1i2.42. ↩