Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)
3. Session / Séance. Sharing of Experience and Exchange of Staff / Partage d’Expériences et Echange des Personnes - Thibodeau, Sharon: The Pitfalls of Terminology and linguistic Barriers / Pieges de la Terminologie et Barrieres linguistiques (english 207 - français 217)
artificial person. Typical examples of corporate bodies are associations, institutions, business firms, nonprofit enterprises, governments, government agencies, religious bodies, landed estates, and conferences. Description The process of recording information about the origin, nature and content of fonds or their component parts, and the results of this process; the creation of representations of original materials for management and retrieval. Fonds. The whole of the documents, regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or accumulated and used by a particular person, family, or corporate body in the conduct of personal or corporate activities. Levels of description Archival description may be done at several levels representing the internal divisions of a fonds established during the process of arrangement. Provenance. The office or person of origin of archives; that is, the particular person, family, or corporate body that created and/or accumulated and used the documents in the conduct of personal or corporate activity. Unit of description. The archival entity for which a descriptive representation is created. Respect des fonds The principle that the documents created and accumulated by a person, family, or corporate body by reason of its functions or activities must be kept together, and not mixed or combined with the documents of another individual or corporate body. This glossary and the accompanying principles6 were circulated in English for review by ICA organizational units and professional association members. A number of these reviewers commented on the content of the glossary. Some merely requested that concepts be added7; others revealed that the Working Party had not been entirely successful it its efforts to avoid the pitfalls of terminology. Ironically, the most important linguistic barriers were recognized by English-speaking commentators. These barriers involve two key terms: description and fonds Defining Description As the focus of the standardization effort, the concept of archival description must be clearly understood. The glossary accompanying the Statement of Principles Regarding Archival Description characterizes archival description as both a verb and a noun; archival description is both a process and the result of a process. The principles emphasize that description is - above all - a representation of archives or („original materials“). Recognizing that representations of archives may be developed at various points in their life cycle, the Principles nevertheless focus precisely on 3. Session/Séance: Thibodeau, Pitfalls of Terminology and linguistic Barriers 6 Statement of Principles Regarding Archival Description adopted by the Ad-Hoc-Commission on Descriptive Standards Hoehr-Grenzhausen, Germany, October 1990. 7 A reviewer from Italy asked that the glossary be expanded to include definitions for repository, series, physical unit, logical unit, and minimal unit. A representative of SARBICA asked that a definition of the principle of provenance be added. 211
