Saa Dictionary (2024)

FAQs

Is archivist capitalized? ›

(capitalized and usually preceded by the) the chief official responsible for the archives program of a nation, state, territory, or institution (View Citations)

Archives are generally defined as a collection of documents or records, often historical, providing information about an individual, place, institution, corporation, organization, or group of people. Special Collections refers to any cohesive collection of research materials linked by origin or by a thematic focus.

A collection is like a fonds, in that it refers to the whole of documents which might consist of series, files and items, but unlike a fonds, it is an artificial grouping of material that has been put together after the documents' creation because they relate to the same subject.

the division within an organization responsible for acquiring and maintaining the organization's records of continuing value; institutional archives (View Citations)

Generally speaking, a librarian helps people find information and do research. They are there to answer questions and help people find the answers they seek with referenced sources. Conversely, an archivist works privately, cataloguing, processing, appraising, and maintaining important documents.

An archivist is a professional who preserves, authenticates and organizes historical documents. Archivists typically work in museums or libraries and may specialize in working with documents of a specific type, such as manuscripts or books, or materials that belong to a specific era.

In contrast, a fonds is a natural accumulation of records a person or organization makes or receives through their daily activities. A collection is curated and often contains only one type of item such as butterflies, books, stamps, or photographs.

Provenance. An archive collection's provenance is the history of its ownership - how they were put together and for what purpose, and its journey over time until it has ended up in your custody. It's best to avoid putting items together in the catalogue which are from different provenances.

fonds (plural fonds) The entire collection of the records originating from the same creator; an archive term used to describe a collection of papers that originate from the same source.

The National Emergency Library expanded the Archive's long-running Open Library program, which lets people digitally “check out” scanned copies of physical books. Publishers dubbed both systems “willful digital piracy on an industrial scale,” and in a March ruling, a New York judge substantially agreed.

What is the largest archive in the world? ›

The French National Archives, which possess perhaps the largest archival collection in the world (with records going as far back as 625 A.D.), was created in 1790 during the Revolution from various government, religious, and private archives seized by the revolutionaries.

The oldest known example of a collection consisting primarily of written literary works (poetry, stories, travelogues, etc.) is the Library of Ashurbanipal, assembled at Nineveh (in present-day Iraq) by Ashurbanipal (688-631 BCE), king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

That's your quick and dirty tip: capitalize job titles when they come before a name and are an official title, and lowercase job titles when they come after a name or are merely descriptive.

Archives as a singular noun:

An organization that collects records, or the department within an organization that collects them. The Archives (with “the” and capitalized “a”) can be the official collector of an organization's records. The building that holds the records.

Capitalize named chairs or professorships that include the academic title and titles such as Distinguished Professor. Use lowercase for terms denoting roles, such as nurse, coach, citizen, or historian, when they precede a name.

Archivists are specially trained in preserving the original material and helping people obtain it. Archivists work with paper documents, photographs, maps, films, and computer records. Many begin their careers as historians and then attend classes to learn from experienced archivists.