This glossary of terms for archives and special collections was developed by Susan Fraser, Archivist of the New York Botanical Garden and responsible for CBHL Archives.

It is added to the CBHL website as part of her work with CBHL's Resource Assessment for Preservation and Access Committee (RAPAC).

Access

The right, opportunity, or means of finding or using documents and information.

Accession

The formal acceptance into custody of an acquisition and the recording of such.

Accrual

An acquisition additional to series already held.

Acquisition Policy

An official statement issued by an archives or manuscript repository identifying the kinds of materials it accepts and the conditions which affect their acquisition.

Active Records

Records which are used in an office at least once per year.

Administrative Records

Records that relate to the administration of finance, personnel, equipment and other facilitative operations.

Administrative Value

The usefulness of records to the office of origin for carrying out its day-to-day activities.

Agreement

A writing made to evidence the terms and conditions, or the fact, of an arrangement.

Appraisal

The evaluation of records to determine their value and proper disposition.

Archives

Documents created or received and accumulated by a person or organization in the course of conducting business, and preserved because of their continuing value.

A program, department or administrative unit responsible for selecting, preserving and making available non-current records with long term value.

An area utilized for storage of inactive records, manuscripts, papers, and memorabilia which are retained permanently for historical, legal, research, or social reasons.

Archival box

A storage container intended to protect and facilitate the handling of archival materials.

Archivist

A person professionally educated, trained, experienced, and engaged in the administration of archival materials, including appraisal and disposition, acquisition, preservation, arrangement and description, reference service, and outreach. The term is frequently used to refer to a Manuscript Curator.

Index of terms:   

A -  B -  C -  D -  E - 

F -  H -  I -  L -  M - 

N -  O -  P -  R -  S - 

T -  U -  V -  W   

Barrier Sheet

A sheet, such as polyester or alkaline buffered paper, placed between materials to retard acid migration.

Biographical Note

That part of a finding aid which records the highlights of the life and activities of a person or family that generated the documents described therein.

Blueprint

A print made on paper or cloth, coated with light-sensitive iron salts, producing an image in white on a blue background.

Bulk Dates

Dates of those documents that constitute the largest part of a collection. Bulk dates are used to inform researchers of the chronological or period strength of archival materials, particularly when inclusive dates are misleading.

Central Files

The records or files of one or more organizational units physically and/or functionally centralized.

Confidentiality

The quality of secrecy attaching to certain information and/or documents, that thereby require protection, usually taking the form of restricted access.

Conservation

The component of preservation that deals with the physical or chemical treatment of documents.

Container List

A listing of materials by container meant to facilitate retrieval. Such a list will include the title of a series or file, the portion contained within each container and the inclusive dates of the material.

Content

The information that a document is meant to convey.

Content Note:

See Scope and Content Note.

Context

The organizational, functional and operational circumstances in which documents are created and/or received and used.

The parts of a title or text that precede or follow the keyword, usually influencing its meaning.

Copy

A duplication of a document prepared simultaneously or separately, usually identified by function or by method of creation.

Correspondence

Any form of addressed and written communication sent and received, including letters, postcards, memoranda, notes, telegrams or cables.

Current Records

Records regularly used for the conduct of business by their creator.

Custodial History

The succession of offices or persons who had custody of a body of archival materials from its creation to its acquisition by an archives or manuscript repository.

Disposal

See Disposition

Disposition

The final state in a record's life cycle, involving either:
destruction
transfer to inactive storage
transfer to the institution's Archives for permanent preservation.

Disposition Date

The date specified in a records schedule on which a group of records is subject to disposition.

Document

Recorded information regardless of form or medium.

Document Type:

See Form.

Documentation

The creation or acquisition of documents to provide evidence of the creator, an event, or an activity.

An organized series of descriptive documents explaining the operating system and software necessary to use and maintain a file and the arrangement, content and coding of the data which it contains.

Documentation Strategy

An on-going, analytic, cooperative approach designed, promoted, and implemented by creators, administrators, and users to ensure the archival retention of appropriate documentation in some area of human endeavor through the application of archival techniques, the creation of institutional archives and redefined acquisition policies, and the development of sufficient resources.

Ephemera

Documents created specifically for a transitory purpose.

Evidential Value

The usefulness of records as the primary evidence of an organization's authority, functions, operations, transactions, and basic decisions and procedures.

File

A collection of documents grouped together for use or arrangement.

File Maintenance

The activity of keeping a file up to date by adding, changing, or deleting data.

The systematic inspection of a file for the purposes of replacing worn file folders, mending torn documents, removing duplicate copies, locating possible misfiles, and insuring proper sequence of contents.

Filing

The process of sorting and arranging, classifying or categorizing, and storing records so that they may be retrieved rapidly when needed.

Filing System

A planned arrangement of records designed to satisfy the reference needs of the people who use them.

The classification scheme which structures records so that they are readily accessible and complete.

Finding Aid

The descriptive tool, published or unpublished, manual or electronic, produced by a creator, records center, archives or manuscript repository to establish physical control and/or intellectual control over records and/or archival materials.

Fiscal Value

The usefulness of records for information about the financial transactions and obligations of an organization.

Folder List

A list detailing the folders contained in an archival box.

Form

A document, printed or otherwise produced, with predesignated recording of specified information.

All the characteristics of a document that can be separated from its content.

Hard Copy

A document, usually on paper, that can be read with the unaided eye.

Historical Value

The usefulness of records for historical research concerning an organization's functions and development, or for information about persons, places or events.

Holding Area

An area used for the temporary storage of records.

Holdings

The totality of documents in the custody of a records center, archives or manuscript repository.

Holdings Maintenance

A preservation activity that includes unfolding or unrolling documents, removing or replacing harmful fasteners, reproducing unstable documents, placing materials in acid-free folders and boxes, and shelving them in environmentally controlled and secure storage.

Iconographic Records/Archives

Records/archives in the form of pictures, photographs, illustrations, prints, and the products of other pictorial processes.

Inactive Records

Records used in an office less than once every two years.

Informational Value

Factual data about the persons, events, problems, and conditions of the record creator and which may be useful for historical research or other studies.

Intellectual Control

A series of measures, such as box and folder inventories, card catalog entries, and indexes that enable users of records to find the information they need.

Intrinsic Value

The inherent worth or a document based upon factors such as age, content, usage, circumstances of creation, signature or attached seals.

Inventory

An archival finding aid whose unit of entry is usually the series, including a brief administrative history of the organization(s) whose records are being described as well as descriptions of the records.

A detailed listing of the volume, scope, and complexity of an organization's records, usually compiled for the purpose of creating a records schedule.

Item

The smallest indivisible archival unit (e.g., a letter, memorandum, report, leaflet, or photograph). Items accumulate to form Series.

Lantern Slide

A positive, transparent image on a glass slide for projection.

Legal value

The usefulness of records which contain evidence of legally enforceable rights or obligations to the government or of private persons.

Letterbook

A volume of blank or lined pages on which letters have been written in the form of drafts written by the author or fair copies made by the author or a clerk.

>

Copies of letters, originally on loose sheets and most frequently carbon copies, bound together, usually in chronological order.

Lifecycle

The theory that the paperwork of an institution goes through distinct phases: records are created, used for some purpose, stored or filed for future reference, evaluated, and eventually disposed of or transferred to an archive for permanent retention.

Linear Feet

A measurement for descriptive and control purposes of shelf space occupied by documents. For vertical files, the total length of drawers, shelves, or other equipment occupied is calculated; in material filed horizontally, the total vertical thickness is used.

A measurement for descriptive and control purposes of the length of film, tape, or microfilm.

Mandate

The authority vested in an agency or department through its mission.

Manuscript

A handwritten or typed document.

Manuscripts

Documents of manuscript character usually having the historical or literary value or significance.

Map

A document depicting in graphic or photogrammetric form, normally to scale and usually on a flat medium, a selection of material or abstract features on or in relation to the surface of the earth or of a heavenly body.

Master

The copy of a document, or in some cases the original, from which copies are made.

Medium

The physical material in or on which information may be recorded.

Microfiche

A flexible transparent sheet of film bearing a number of microimages arranged in horizontal rows and vertical columns.

Microfilm

A fine grain, high resolution film used to record microimages.

Microform

A generic term for any medium, transparent or opaque, including, but not limited to, aperture cards, microfiche, microfilm strips and rolls.

Motion Picture

A sequence of images on roll film or videotape as advanced, presents the illusion of motion or movement.

Negative

A photographic image with reversed polarity or, if colored, complementary tonal values to those of the original.

Non-current records

Records used in an office less than once every two years.

Non-records

Stocks of printed or reproduced documents kept for supply purposes where file copies have been retained for record purposes;

books, journals, newspapers, or other materials preserved solely for reference;

preliminary drafts or computations, worksheets, and informal notes which do not represent significant steps in the preparation of a record document;

duplicate copies of documents preserved only for convenience;

materials not filed as evidence of departmental operations or for their informational value;

personal materials which are the property of the custodian and which have no relation to official duties.

Office of Origin

The office in which a given record or record series was originally created or accumulated.

Office of Record

An office designated to maintain the record copies of documents for an organization.

Official Copy

A record which is not duplicated elsewhere, or the designated main file copy of duplicated and dispersed materials.

Open Records

Files with no restrictions.

Optical Disc

A device that allows the storage of either digital or analog signals on a disc.

Oral History

The products of planned oral interviews with individuals, usually in the form of sound recordings or transcripts.

Paige Box

An acid-free box with metal reinforced edges used to store records of permanent value.

Patent

A grant of some privilege, property, or authority, made by the government or sovereign of a country to one or more individuals.

A grant made by the government to an inventory, conveying and securing to the grantee the exclusive right to make, use, and sell his/her invention for a term of years.

Personal Papers

The private documents accumulated by or belonging to an individual and subject to his/her disposition.

Photocopy

A copy produced on or by means of sensitized material by the action of light or other radiant energy with or without intermediate negative.

Photograph

An image produced on photosensitive material by exposure to light and subsequent chemical development.

Photographic Records/Archives

Records/archives in the form of photographs, including negatives and prints.

Plan

A document in graphic or photogrammetric form depicting the arrangement in horizontal section of a structure, piece of ground, etc.

Poster

A document, usually printed on one side of a single sheet of paper and often illustrated, posted to advertise or publicize something.

Proceedings

A record of business transacted at a meeting or conference.

Processing

The activities of accessioning, arranging, describing, and properly storing archival materials.

The treatment of exposed photographic material to make the latent image visible.

Provenance

The organization, individual or department that created, accumulated and or maintained and used records in the conduct of business prior to their transfer to the archives.

Public Records

All books, papers, maps, photographs, films, recordings, or other documentary materials or any copy thereof regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by any division of the institution or its officers or employees in connection with the transaction of daily business. These records are open to public inspection.

Record

A document created or received and maintained by an individual or department in the transaction of business.

Records Management

The systematic control of the maintenance, use and disposition of records.

Records Inventory

An identification and evaluation of the records possessed by an office for the purpose of creating a retention schedule.

Record Series

A group of related records or documents that are normally used and filed as a unit because they result from the same activity or function or have some relationship arising from their creation, receipt, etc. and permit their evaluation as a unit.

Research Value

The usefulness of records for research by scholars.

Restricted access

A limitation on the use of a body of documents. Restrictions may be imposed by law, donors, departments or the archivist.

Retention

The process of holding documents for possible future use or value.

Retention Schedule

The description of a record series and its lifecycle.

Retrieval

The process of locating and withdrawing documents and delivering them for use.

Scheduling

The process of determining and recording in a records schedule the appropriate retention period and ultimate disposition of series.

Scope and Content Note

A statement summarizing the function, use, provenance and media contained within a collection of records.

Scope Note

A note that explains how a term in an authority file or classification plan/scheme is used.

Separation Sheet

A form used to document the removal of one or more items from their original storage place. The separation sheet is filed in place of the removed items to denote their new location.

Series

See Record Series

Slide

A single positive photographic image on transparent material intended for projection.

Sound Recording

A disc, tape, filament, or other medium on which sound has been recorded.

Storage Box

See Archives Box

Subseries

A body of documents within a series readily identifiable by filing arrangement, type, format or content.

Survey

A document assembling information relating to specified subject(s) or problem(s) as a basis for planning and decision-making.

A document resulting from the formal inspection of landed property giving details of its nature, extent, and location, and sometimes used as the basis for tax assessment.

Technical Drawing

A plan, elevation, cross-section, detail, diagram, or map made for use in an engineering, architectural, or other technical context.

Temporary Records

Records appraised as having limited value and approved for destruction, either immediately or after a specified retention period.

Transcript

A copy or reproduction of an original document, with the exception that abbreviations may be extended.

An exact copy of a text.

A verbatim written, typed, or printed version of the spoken word.

Transfer

The movement of records from one custodian to another.

Transmittal List

A document that lists the records being transferred from the office of origin to the archives. Each container should have its own content list.

Transparency

A photographic image on transparent material used for viewing or projecting by transmitted light, or for making copies.

Unscheduled Records

Records for which no final disposition has been determined.

Vertical File

Equipment which stores records from front to back rather than side to side.

Vital Records

Records containing information essential to continue a department or organization in the event of a disaster. They comprise the records necessary to recreate legal and financial status and to determine rights and obligations.

Weeding

The removal of documents or files from a series, lacking continuing value.

Core Literature Project: Historical Monographs in Botanical Sciences

IBC Symposium

Links to professional organizations and associations

Links for plant libraries and archives resources