Origin and Development of the Concept of Archival Description

To talk about the origin and development of a concept means to trace the rise and progressive evolution of an idea which includes all that is characteristically associated with or suggested by a term. The term in question is "archival description." The word "description" comes from Latin descriptio, meaning copy, design, trace, delimitation or classification. The Latin noun descriptio comes in turn from the verb describere, meaning to transcribe, copy, narrate, define, distribute, assign to classes. Etymologically, describere derives from the preposition de and the verb scribere, meaning "to write about." Thus, the term "archival description" literally means writing about archival material, and embraces the ideas of representation, identification and organization.