Archival Research Guide

Archivists create a finding aid to map and describe the different components of an archival collection. In other words, they organize materials within a collection into groups and describe the contents of those groups. Generally, an archivist ascertains how to group materials based on the activities documented by the materials and how the creator of the archival collection worked and organized these materials. Although, in practice, this often varies from collection to collection.

A finding aid is a tool archivists use to intellectually organize an archival collection hierarchically from the broadest description (Fonds level) to the most specific (File level). For instance, while a Fonds level description describes the entire collection, a File level description only describes the contents within a file. When you read a finding aid, you will notice that descriptions are more specific the further down you go in the hierarchy.

You can search McGill Library's finding aids via the  Archival Collections Catalogue. 

Archivists arrange an archival collection into the following groups ordered in the following sequence:

• Fonds level: In a fond level description, the archivist provides a general description of what kinds of activities, topics, and people are documented by the materials in the entirety of the archival collection. They will also provide some context about the construction of the collection.
• Series level: Generally, this group organizes and represents materials produced for the same activity. For instance, a series can group and describe materials produced by a professor's teaching activities. However, sometimes, a series groups all the materials created by a specific person or on a theme. How series are used to group materials varies on the archival collection and the archival institution's practices.
• Sub-series level: An activity represented by a series may have many parts, for example, different tasks or projects. Consider the series for a professor's teaching activities. If the professor taught at multiple institutions, the archivist might split the materials into subseries to differentiate the professor's teaching activities for different institutions. 
• File level: The file level is usually the last level of description in a finding aid, although, exceptionally, an archivist may choose to provide item descriptions in unique cases. A file level description usually provides a descriptive title of the contents of a folder.