Discovering Common Missions or Diverging Goals: The State of Archival Descriptive Standards in Canada and the United States (original) (raw)

Abstract

During the last two decades archivists in Canada and the United States have focused much effort on standardizing their descriptive practices. This article describes and analyses the development and implementation of archival descriptive standards in the two countries. It reviews the foundation upon which the standards were based and describes the numerous data content and data structure standards that were developed. It chronicles the history of the development and implementation of these standards in North America. The paper identifies how the standards promulgated in the two countries differ and suggests reasons for these differences. It also discusses the various critiques of the standardization process and its products as well as describing other approaches that British and Australian archivists are pursuing. It reviews the few research studies that have been conducted and concludes with recommendation for more research in this area.

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