Improving archival collections’ discoverability, accessibility, and usability through contextual information
Improving archival collections’ discoverability, accessibility, and usability through contextual information

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines how the new conceptual model Records in Contexts (RiC) by the Expert Group on Archival Description (EGAD) of the International Council on Archives (ICA) could improve access and use of historical or cultural heritage collections through its emphasis on contextualized information. It also shows how contextualized archival descriptions play an important role in virtually or intellectually reuniting physically dispersed but related archival collections, as in the case of the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., United States, and the Bibliothèque byzantine of Collège de France in Paris, France. While discoverability of information in archives and research institutions has increased since the emergence of finding aids and online databases, the accessibility and usability of archival information are issues that many archivists are still struggling to improve and perfect. Lingering questions among archival professionals include: how much information should be given to each collection; should archivists provide contextual information for enhanced access and use of collection materials; or are minimal descriptions sufficient? To illustrate the advantages of putting records in context, this paper investigates how the physically separated but associated archives of Thomas Whittemore and the Byzantine Institute came together, although they are preserved and described in two different institutions. Through the efforts of restoring Respect des fonds to its original order, echoing RiC’s stress on the principles of Provenance, the aim was to enhance the discovery of information and to focus on the approachability and usefulness of information for better scholarship of primary or archival sources.

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