Nottinghamshire Archives Cataloguing Standards 2010

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ARCHIVES

Cataloguing standards policy (revised Aug 2010)

1 Introduction

All cataloguing at Nottinghamshire Archives is undertaken to the highest

professional standard. It is recognised that a repository is assessed by the

quality of its catalogues and their ease of use both in hard copy and as

electronic records. Every attempt is made to ensure that catalogue entries

are consistent and intelligible to the public. This is reflected in the PSQG

rating.

2 International standards

2.1 All cataloguing is based on the following standards:

• General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD (G))

• National Council on Archives: Rules for the Construction of Personal,

Place and Corporate names

• International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate bodies,

Persons and Families (ISAAR (CPF))

2.2 Guidance on subject indexing is taken from UK Archival Thesaurus

(http://www.ukat.org.uk

3 Cataloguing using ISAD (G)

3.1 The following elements are considered mandatory for ISAD (G)

compliance:

Reference code

Title

Creator

Date

Extent of the unit of description

Level of description

3.2 Collection (fonds) level on NA’s version of CALM

3.2.1 At collection (fonds) level all the above in 3.1 are mandatory; the

following additional ISAD (G) elements are prescribed by NA:

Repository

Accession number (recording the source of acquisition)

Scope and Content

Access status

3.2.2 The following elements, not mentioned in ISAD (G), are also prescribed by

NA:

Alternative reference number

Catalogue status

Completion date

Archivist’s initials

3.2.3 The following ISAD (G) elements are optional both for ISAD (G) and for

NA:

Admin history

Custodial history

Cross references (under Related Units in ISAD (G)

Appraisal

Arrangement

Access conditions (default text)

Access category note

Reproduction note (default text)

Publication note

Originals

Related materials

3.2.4 The field ‘Location’ is not completed at this level.

3.3

Component level on NA’s version of CALM

3.3.1 At component level the following elements are mandatory in ISAD (G) and

therefore prescribed by NA:

Reference code

Title

Date

Extent of the unit of description

Level of description

3.3.2 The following additional ISAD (G) elements are prescribed by NA:

Repository

Accession number (recording the source of acquisition)

Scope and Content

Access status (only at the lowest level)

3.3.3 The following elements, not mentioned in ISAD (G) are also prescribed by

NA:

Alternative reference number

Catalogue status

3.3.4 The following ISAD(G) fields are optional:

Cross references (under Related Units in ISAD(G)

Access category note

Closed ‘til (only at lowest level)

Language

Publication note

Originals

3.3.5 The field ‘Location’ is also available but the data will be entered using the

location menu and transferred to this screen.

Conclusion: Nottinghamshire Archives conforms to ISAD (G) for the

cataloguing of its archival collections.

4 Indexing Places using the NCA Rules

4.1 There are no mandatory elements noted in the NCA rules, the guidance

being given (§3.1.2) that ‘A place name may comprise the following

components as appropriate to the area described:

Place

Civil parish

Local administrative unit

County/wider administrative unit

Country’

It also suggests the use of grid references to avoid ambiguity (§3.1.3).

4.2 At NA the following are prescribed:

either Geographical feature eg Sherwood Forest

or Non administrative area eg Portland estate

or City/Town/Parish

and County/Region eg East Midlands, Antarctica

and Country

4.3 At NA the optional elements available are:

Street

Suburb/Township/Hamlet

4.4 When indexing documents dating pre-1500 the form of the place name as

it occurs in the document should be used with a cross reference to its

modern equivalent (based on § 3.2.1A).

4.5 Where county boundaries have changed, the county recorded should be

the one contemporary with the document not the present-day one.

Conclusion: Nottinghamshire Archives complies with the guidance laid

down in the NCA Rules for the indexing of place names.

5 Indexing Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families using the NCA

rules and ISAAR (CFP).

5.1 Corporate names (including administrative bodies)

5.1.1 The mandatory elements in ISAAR (CPF) are

Type of entity ie corporate name

Authorised form of name ie the full indexing entry

Dates of existence

Authority record identifier; on CALM this is a unique number

which is automatically generated.

5.1.2 In the NCA Rules there are no mandatory elements the Rules stating that

index entries may contain some or all of the following (§4.1.2A):

Name of corporate body

Name of jurisdiction or territorial authority

Name of subordinate body

Additions and qualifiers

5.1.3 At NA the following elements are prescribed:

Type of entity ie corporate name

Name of the corporate body ie business, administrative area

etc

Dates of existence (minimum compliance being a century)

Authority record identifier

The first and last of these are generated automatically on CALM.

5.1.4 At NA the following elements are optional:

Parallel entry

Nationality

Relationship

5.1.5 The name of any company used in the index should be that used at the

time of the creation of the documents or the latest name of the company in

a series of records, with suitable cross references (NCA Rules §4.2.3).

5.1.6 Similarly the name of the administrative body at the time of the creation of

the document should be used as the indexing term.

Conclusion: Nottinghamshire Archives complies with the guidance laid

down in the NCA Rules for the indexing of corporate names

and conforms to the requirements of ISAAR (CPF).

5.2 Persons

5.2.1 The mandatory elements in ISAAR (CPF) are

Type of entity ie personal name

Authorised form of name ie the full indexing entry

Dates of existence

Authority record identifier; on CALM this is a unique number

which is automatically generated.

5.2.2 In the NCA Rules the mandatory elements are (§2.1.2A):

Surname

Pre-title (mandatory where applicable)

Forename (mandatory where applicable)

Additional elements of name (mandatory where applicable)

Dates

5.2.3 At NA the following elements are prescribed:

Type of entity ie personal name

Surname

Forename/initial

Dates of existence: full dates are mandatory for persons of

national importance and members of the aristocracy; for

other persons the minimum requirement is a floruit date or a

century

Authority record identifier

The first and last of these are generated automatically on CALM.

5.2.4 At NA the following elements are optional:

Pre-title

Title

Epithets (although wherever possible a place eg ‘of Lowdham’ should

be entered here)

Gender

Parallel form of name

Other forms of name

Dates and places

History (formerly nationality)

Relationships

Conclusion: Nottinghamshire Archives conforms to the requirements of

both the NCA Rules and ISAAR (CPF) for the indexing of

personal names.

5.3 Families

5.3.1 The mandatory elements in ISAAR (CPF) are

Type of entity ie family name

Authorised form of name ie the full indexing entry

Dates of existence

Authority record identifier; on CALM this is a unique number

which is automatically generated.

5.3.2 In the NCA Rules the mandatory elements are (§2.6.2):

Name

Epithet ‘family’

Title or occupation (mandatory where applicable)

5.3.3 At NA the following elements are prescribed:

Type of entity ie family name

Family name

Dates of existence (minimum compliance being a century or

a floruit date)

Authority record identifier

The first and last of these are generated automatically on CALM.

5.3.4 At NA the following elements are optional:

Title or occupation

Territorial designation

Parallel forms of name

Dates and place: this is used for families of note who are

associated with a particular estate

History (formerly nationality)

Relationships

Conclusion: Nottinghamshire Archives conforms to the requirements of

both the NCA Rules and ISAAR (CPF) for the indexing of family

names

6 Caveat concerning the use of full dates and centuries

6.1 For personal names under the NCA Rules and for personal, family and

corporate names under ISAAR (CPF), NA fulfils all the requirements

except in the use of full dates for all entries, a requirement which appears

in both standards.

To put this into context, the NCA rules state:

‘The primary purpose of these Rules is to assist…in forming names

for persons, places and corporate bodies which are unique and

readily identifiable by users’ (§ 1.2.3) and

‘A personal name is constructed…so that the person can be

identified with certainty and distinguished from others bearing

similar names’

An individual should only have one authorised form of name and

each name should only apply to only one individual. In cases where

it is unclear whether or not an existing authorised name applies to

the person being described, another containing a distinguishing

component must be created.’(§ 2.1.2B)

6.2 It is unfortunately impracticable for collections held by a county record

office to be indexed with every name being entered as an identifiable

person rather than just as a personal name; without extensive research in

parish registers etc it is not possible to attach a personal name to a

particular unique individual (and even then it may prove impossible). As

Appendix 1 of chapter 2 of the Rules clearly shows the Rules were drawn

up with well-known persons in mind; ie those who would be found in major

reference books eg the Dictionary of National Biography etc.

6.3 Therefore the compromise has been adopted of making the provision of

dates for the names of persons of significant international, national or local

note prescriptive, while other names have been qualified with a floruit date

or a century based on the documents being listed. For the researcher this

has the benefit of narrowing down the number of matches obtained when

interrogating the catalogue to just those at a certain period of time. In the

latter case the index needs to be considered as an index of names rather

than an index of people.

6.4 This complies with the NCA Rules and ISAAR (CPF) which were both

drawn up to address the indexing of specific people, rather than the

indexing of names.

7 Indexing subjects/terms

7.1 There are several national and international subject thesauri

available: viz:

• Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organisation)Thesaurus (

http://databases.unesco.org/thesaurus/)

as used with A2A

• UK Archival Thesaurus (http://www.ukat.org.uk) which is based on

the Unesco Thesaurus and can be imported into CALM.

• AIM25 Subject Thesaurus

(http://www.aim25.ac.uk/search/thesaurus/)

• Library of Congress Subject Headings

(http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/lcsh/)

7.2 Being national or international indexes these are often too broad in their

concepts or too detailed for use in a local repository; eg UKAT based on

UNESCO has 10 narrower terms under the broad term ‘television’ which in

turn comes under Information Industry. In a local record office, ‘television’

as a term on its own is considered sufficient. Obviously if a repository had

the papers of the BBC then a broader set of terms would be required.

7.3 The present subject index used at Nottinghamshire Archives is not truly

hierarchical although the attempt was made in the 1980s to give it some

structure. The terms included are based on the holdings at the time. It will

continue to be the basis of the subject index with terms being added to it

as required, using the UK Archival Thesaurus (UKAT) as a guide.