The project aims to provide a guideline or standard for access to archives. Access, as defined in the ICA Dictionary of Archival Terminology, means the availability of records for consultation as a result both of legal authorization and the existence of finding aids. For the past two decades ICA concentrated on standards for description of archives, that is, the finding aids as half of the definition. The project objective is now to cover the other half of the definition, that of the standards for legal authorization to make records available. When the guideline or standard that results is complete, the ICA will have an authoritative position on the entire range of issues encompassed by the term access.
The project will draft a guideline or standard for access. As currently conceived, the document will have a preface and introduction, a glossary, a statement of principles, a technical report on putting the principles into practice (with model forms), and a bibliography. This follows the model of the descriptive standards.
Completion date: 2012
The project is developed by an ad hoc working group chaired by Trudy Huskamp-Peterson.