THE EVOLUTION OF ARCHIVAL DESCRIPTION AT THE SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION

by Knodel, Laura A.

This study examines the evolution of archival description at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This study was conducted to analyze changes in the structure and contents of finding aids produced at the Southern Historical Collection from the 1930s through 2003, and to determine the degree to which these changes reflect the development of archival description at a national level.

The Southern Historical Collection has updated its finding aids numerous times from the Works Progress Administration inventories used in the 1930s, to the EAD finding aids produced today. A description and comparison of these various finding aids not only illustrates the evolution of descriptive practices used at the Southern Historical Collection, but it also provides insight into the American archival profession's shift from adapting national guidelines on archival description to fit individual repository needs to the implementation of national descriptive standards.