10.0 Scope and definitions

10.0.1. Chapter 10 is optional.

10.0.2. Use of Chapter 10 implies that the archive includes information on its collection management activities in a single catalogue. This information may be regarded as restricted and therefore maintained and/or displayed separately from other information in the catalogue. Nevertheless it is essential, if included, that this information is referenced to the description, prepared according to Areas 1-8, for the original item or first copy held, and also linked to information about other related copies in the archive so that accurate inventories and 'audit trails' can be produced.

10.0.3. Chapter 10 provides guidelines for describing in detail the physical make-up and derivation of additional copies, be they copies of items from the archive's own holdings (which will have been made typically for conservation purposes) or from elsewhere, e.g. items loaned by an external collector for copying. This mostly concerns unpublished and broadcast recordings but may apply to published items, in particular those which appear on vulnerable formats. In an ideal world each copy corresponds to a single original item (i.e. one tape reel copied to another tape reel), but the short duration of most early items makes such a policy uneconomic and it is therefore more typical for compilation copies to be created, i.e. several items on 78 rpm discs copied to a single reel of tape. Where this occurs, the newly compiled item will require its own new catalogue record with supplied title (see 1.G.6), and a description corresponding to the rules in areas 3-8. However, detailed information relating to this newly created item, and any subsequent copies of it, may be handled through Chapter 10.

10.0.4. Chapter 10 may also be used to record detailed descriptions of published items acquired as different or duplicate formats, e.g. where an item is published simultaneously as a CD and as an audiocassette and both are held by the archive, or where more than one copy of each format is acquired.

10.0.5. The most substantial part of an entry using Chapter 10 will consist of notes (10.B.7) which reflect observations made by the conservation or curatorial staff. These should be entered in a format similar to the scientific method: observations about the original, and, when it is to be copied: observations about the copying process itself (e.g. the equipment used in the copying, the parameters governing the migration of digital data from one file to another) and observations about the resulting copy. Such observations should be sufficiently detailed and precise to enable a future conservator to reverse engineer the copy if need be.

10.0.6.The other vital information to be included here concerns source of acquisition: where the item being copied came from; who owned it; is the item itself a copy and if so, how and when was it copied, etc. (see 10.B.2, 10.B.7.6).