Building a National Finding Aid Network: Final Report

Note on TerminologyThe terms "archives" and "finding aids," which appear throughout this document, are specific terms of art in the domain and were thus utilized within the context of this project (embedded, even, in the project name itself).For the purposes of this report, the term "archives" represents a broad range of cultural heritage and memory organizations and encompasses any entity that collects and stewards the organically-created records of individuals, families, or other organizations.The term "finding aid" refers to collection guides, inventories, registers, and other summaries of descriptions of materials represented in archival collections, intended to support researchers with context for and access to those collections.While this report reflects the terminology used at the time of the project, any future developments stemming from this project should consider more expansive terms.