n.the level of arrangement of the unit being describedAPPM2 1989, 5There may be several appropriate levels of description for any given body of archival material. These levels normally correspond to natural divisions based on provenance or physical form. The principle corresponds with the bibliographic concept of analysis, “the process of preparing a bibliographic record that describes a part or parts of an item for which a comprehensive entry has been made” [citing AACR2 § 13.1A].ISAD(G) 2000, 11Level of description. The position of the unit of description in the hierarchy of the fonds.Riley and Shepherd 2009, 99It is not necessarily a physical item, therefore, and could instead be any level of description desired, although most metadata aggregators using OAI PMH do assume item-level description.the completeness or exhaustiveness of the descriptionSAA 1994The level of description of records depends on their research value, the anticipated level of demand, and their physical condition.Weideman 2006, 275We instituted what we call “minimum standards”—the minimum level of arrangement and description that would meet the needs of researchers to locate specific boxes of materials (and sometimes specific folders) and meet the expectations of donors.Mayer 2013, 19User-contributed content has been suggested as a means to narrow the gap between the level of description that resource-constrained repositories are able to provide and the level of description that users need or have come to expect.Phillips 2015, 482While it may make sense to tie the level of description to the level of arrangement, preservation is an entirely separate function and should take place not at a predetermined level but rather as needed.
