The launch of the 2nd edition of the International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families – ISAAR (CPF) for short – was one of the many highlights of the 15th International Congress on Archives in Vienna in August 2004. ISAAR (CPF) is the second of the ICA’s two standards for archival description – the other being ISAD (G) – the International Standard for Archival Description (General), the 2nd edition of which was launched at the Seville Congress in 2000.

Development and finalisation of the 2nd edition of ISAAR (CPF) was the major project of the ICA Committee on Descriptive Standards during the 2001-2004 quadrennium. CDS Chair Stefano Vitali said that he was honoured and delighted to have been able to steer this significant project through to completion. “The fact that the ICA’s two descriptive standards have matured into their second editions is an indication of the growing international adoption of archival descriptive standards and is itself a sign of the growing maturity of the international profession,” said Mr Vitali.

ISAAR (CPF) provides a standardised means of describing the corporate bodies, persons and families that create archives. The creation of separate but linked descriptions of the creators of archives in descriptive systems provides an efficient and dynamic means of capturing and managing the contextual information that is vital to the discovery, use and understanding of archives. The number of comments received by the CDS during the revision cycle for ISAAR (CPF) indicates a growing professional awareness of the benefits of using both ISAD (G) and ISAAR (CPF) as companion standards in the design and implementation of archival systems, especially those systems that are automated and linked to the internet.

A number of sessions at the Vienna Congress focussed on the changes that have been made to ISAAR (CPF) in the 2nd edition and on the implementation of the two ICA descriptive standards in various international online archival initiatives. Archivists who are familiar with the 1996 1st edition of ISAAR (CPF) will notice that the 2nd edition is greatly modified, featuring a new more logical structure, numerous examples and increased consistency with related international standards such as the IFLA standard for authority records, ISAD (G) and the recently released Encoded Archival Context (EAC) standard for machine readable interchange of ISAAR-compliant data.

All ICA members are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the new ISAAR (CPF) and to consider how their archives may be able to implement it. The standard is available in English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish on the ICA website. Offers of translation into further languages are welcome.

International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families – ISAAR (CPF)

For more information: www.ica.org/cds