Archival Resources on the Internet

There are many excellent resources available for small archives on the Internet. The Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists has made available several publications on their website that can assist archives in a variety of ways. For archives that are new to the standard Rules for Archival Description (RAD), the publication Basic RAD which is available on this website, simplifies this system for creating archival descriptions and provides examples and instructions for writing fonds and series level descriptions according to RAD. The advantage of using RAD is that it helps institutions to eliminate idiosyncracies in their finding aids, makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for, makes it easier to transmit archival information electronically and generally results in higher quality finding aids. Finally, the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) requires that all finding aids created as a result of work funded by CCA grants be RAD-compliant.

link: http://lib74123.usask.ca/rad/

Another excellent resource is the "Archivists Toolkit" which was designed by the Archives Association of British Columbia. This "Toolkit" was created as a resource for people working in small to medium-sized archives and provides information about how to establish an archival program, conduct appraisal and accessioning, arrangement and description of archival collections, information about digitization, as well as provides basic preservation and conservation information.

link: http://aabc.bc.ca/aabc/toolkit.html