What is a finding aid?
A finding aid, also called a collection inventory or a register, is an instrument that gives information about a collection. A typical finding aid for a manuscript collection will give the title of the collection; the call number; information as to the background on the person, agency, or organization the collection is about/from; an abstract of what is contained in the collection; a scope note (brief synopsis) of what materials are in the collection; a detailed description by box and folder number of the contents of the collection; a noting of who donated the materials; and a noting of when the collection was donated. Finding aids are the first and best tool a researcher can use to guide them to appropriate materials without the luxury of online records. Finding aids are particularly useful when using large collections stored in multiple boxes or locations. If a patron is interested in having a large collection transferred from another ARC for research, often times the holding ARC wil
A finding aid is a written guide to a collection that describes what is in the collection and how it is arranged, as well as giving context for how, why, and by whom the documents in the collection were created. Finding aids can be helpful tools for researchers in determining whether or not a set of records is relevant to their research topic, and can also help them navigate the collection to find the records most likely to be useful for their topic. Contents of the collection will be listed at the folder level, as archival documents are generally not cataloged item by item. The Seattle Municipal Archives’ finding aids contain the following elements: • Overview of the collection: Similar to a title page for a book, this section contains general information about the collection, including title, creating agency, collection size, dates covered by the materials, collection number, and a very brief summary of the contents. • Historical or biographical note: Provides historical information
Finding aids are research tools that help you navigate through descriptions of groups of archival records. They are similar to a library catalogue entry, which describes a single book, except that they convey often complex information about the structure of a group of records. Rather than just a single entry, they summarize information in a hierarchical way—from general to specific. Finding aids provide you with references to the full records of a department, office, unit or item. You may then continue the step-by-step process of accessing the archival record(s) by noting the reference code and contacting the Archives’ staff for a research appointment. The IMF Archives’ finding aids are prepared in accordance with standards for archival description approved by the International Council on Archives.
A finding aid is basically an index. When a collection is processed, an index is prepared for that collection, providing summary information about the contents of each folder within a box. Most folders contain more than one document, and so the description entered for that folder may be fairly general. As time permits, we are working to deepen the level of description for our finding aids.
