Include guidance on which parts of the description should be updated and which should persist

[regineheberlein]

Link to relevant DACS principle

Principle 11

Describe how DACS does not currently meet this principle

This is not currently part of DACS. As we move to implement recommendations on iterative description and transparency in description, it seems important to spell out that while the descriptive metadata itself is subject to change over time, the administrative metadata should be considered permanent. In particular, data regarding

• restrictions
• accruals
• separations
• acquisition
• custodial history
• conservation
• loans
• digitization or other extant instantiations
  should be cumulative, i.e. information should be added but never removed or edited

I expect that this will require a

• Minor change to DACS
• Major change to DACS

Link(s) to any relevant part(s) of DACS

label

[faithc]

I may be misconstruing the suggestion here, but administrative metadata isn't static; these notes are often edited/added to, including in cases when they were used incorrectly, are missing data, or are updated per institutional priorities or criteria, for example, in the case of restrictions.

[regineheberlein]

The suggestion is to never edit administrative metadata but only add to it, including corrections.

[michelsd]

Fully agree with Faith's comment and think this would lead to excessive bloat of irrelevant information. I can't see how this could be implemented in a system agnostic way.

[Will-Clements]

Comments from principles working meeting small group:

• Archivists should take into account different types of users, which nuances principles and their application.
  --For instance, certain staff without access to the back end may need access to administrative information in the finding aid that might not be as important for external researchers

• Not every historical fact about a resource should always be retained and accessible to users

• Include examples of description rather than being too prescriptive

• Check that each DACS standard is clear about what should be in the note with regard to this principle, and be aware that certain language, such as “concise” might mislead people about making fields longer/additive

• Thinking about the other principles, is it really necessary to tell people what they MUST keep in finding aids as they are revised? Principle, when fleshed out, should probably not be saying that certain fields can ONLY be additive.