Current Introductions may not be very useful or effective

[gwiedeman]

Link to relevant DACS principle

Principle 8. Archival description should be easy to use, re-use, and share.

Describe how DACS does not currently meet this principle

DACS should be easy for archivist to use, particularly for new professionals attempting to learn more about archival description. The first section, Overview of Archival Description talks primarily about access points, which are not the most important part of archival description. Instead, I would expect some sort of introduction to archival description, where and how the DACS rules apply, and the arrangement of the standard. As-is, its not totally clear to readers why there are two parts to DACS, for example.

Some of this information is instead lower down in Introduction to Describing Archival Materials, and just needs to be organized a but better. I also feel like there is important information about archival description hidden in places like the Requirements for Multilevel Descriptions. Ideas like inheritance and the organization of archival description are really important concepts which are central to implementing DACS and I don't feel like DACS is currently doing a good job at introducing archivists to these ideas.

I expect that this will require a

• Minor change to DACS
• Major change to DACS

Link(s) to any relevant part(s) of DACS

Introduction to Describing Archival Materials
Chapter 1: Levels of Description
Introduction to Archival Authority Records