I believe you may be misinterpreting the quote from the DACS manual. It
does not mean that artificial collections are to be described
identically to "organic" collections (i.e., an archivist should not
describe an artificial collection as an organic one). 
 
DACS and AACR are data content standards, as opposed to EAD and MARC,
which are data structure standards.  Archival description created based
upon DACS can be used in EAD, MARC, and paper finding aids. It is
designed to provide consistency in a wide variety of areas, including
the formatting of dates, punctuation, how to word titles and note
fields, etc.
 
Theoretically, the usage of DACS ensures that descriptive data is of a
consistent format. Obviously, individual repositories will amend and
ignore certain parts of DACS (e.g., a repository containing only
synthetic collections may not need thorough descriptions of provenance
information). However, one can more easily read and interpret data
elements in descriptive records across repositories if they appear in a
consistent format.
 
 
 
Mark A. Matienzo, Assistant Archivist
<[log in to unmask]> | +1 301 209 3180
Center for the History of Physics
American Institute of Physics
One Physics Ellipse
College Park MD 20740-3843 

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>