I have a question for you all, and particularly for those who may have worked on DACS.

My understanding of an archival collection is that, by definition, it comprises the evidence of the activities of its creator, be it an individual or an instutition or organization. I also understand (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this), that the entire practice of using levels of control, levels of description and original order is to preserve the provenance and intellectual integrity that a collection brings with it when it arrives at a repository.

However, if an institution assembles its own collection (as many do, including divisions of my own) and dubs it an "archival collection," what is the point of using techniques of archival arrangement and description if there is no provenance ("original order") to preserve?  I don't argue against collecting materials based on a theme or subject. But DACS gives permission to use techniques developed (in theory) to preserve provenance on collections which have been assembled out of whole cloth, based on the proposition that "such collections are part of the holdings in most institutions and must be described in a way that is consistent with the rest of the holdings." (DACS, p. xii)  Why "must" this be so? Holdings are already described in many different ways at many different institutions, so the admonition seems meaningless while giving permission to award the same credit for historical accuracy to artificial collections as it does to "organic" collections.  

Matt Snyder
Music Archivist
Wilson Processing Project
The New York Public Library
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