level

Scope Note: To identify the level of arrangement of the unit of description.

Resources used for values and scope notes:

class

Scope Note: A group of things sharing common characteristics; members of a set.

collection

Scope Note: An artificial assemblage of documents accumulated on the basis of some common characteristic without regard to the provenance of those documents. Not to be confused with an archival fonds.

file

Scope Note: An organized unit of documents grouped together either for current use by the creator or in the process of archival arrangement, because they relate to the same subject, activity, or transaction. A file is usually the basic unit within a record series.

fonds

Scope Note: The whole of the records, regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or accumulated and used by a particular person, family, or corporate body in the course of that creator’s activities and functions.

item

Scope Note: The smallest intellectually indivisible archival unit, e.g., a letter, memorandum, report, photograph, sound recording.

recordGroup

Scope Note: A collection of records that share the same provenance or were created in the same administrative unit.

series

Scope Note: Documents arranged in accordance with a filing system or maintained as a unit because they result from the same accumulation or filing process, or the same activity; have a particular form; or because of some other relationship arising out of their creation, receipt, or use. A series is also known as a records series.

subfonds

Scope Note: A subdivision of a fonds containing a body of related records corresponding to administrative subdivisions in the originating agency or organization or, when that is not possible, to geographical, chronological, functional, or similar groupings of the material itself. When the creating body has a complex hierarchical structure, each sub-fonds has as many subordinate sub-fonds as are necessary to reflect the levels of the hierarchical structure of the primary subordinate administrative unit.

subgroup

Scope Note: A body of related records within a record group or collection, each corresponding to an administrative subdivision in the originating organization.

subseries

Scope Note: A body of documents within a series readily distinguished from the whole by filing arrangement, type, form, or content.