Archival description in Heratio is multi-level and hierarchical, following the principle of respect des fonds and the general international standard ISAD(G). You describe from the general to the specific - fonds, series, file, item - and describe once at each level, so information common to a whole fonds is not repeated on every item beneath it. The tree structure is the backbone of both cataloguing and public discovery.

Beyond ISAD(G), Heratio can express descriptions using additional standards where an institution needs them, and it embraces the Records in Contexts (RiC) model to represent archives as a graph of entities and relationships rather than a single rigid hierarchy.

Levels and the descriptive hierarchy

  • Create records at any level of arrangement and nest them to reflect original order
  • Inherited context means repository, provenance and access conditions cascade down the tree
  • The hierarchy drives navigation, breadcrumb context and scoped searching for end users

Standards and authority control

Heratio maps its fields to recognised standards so records remain portable. Descriptions can be exported as EAD or Dublin Core, and creator records follow ISAAR(CPF) for corporate bodies, persons and families, with repository descriptions following ISDIAH. Authority records are managed separately and linked, so a single creator or subject term is reused consistently across many descriptions - the foundation of reliable access points.

Records in Contexts

RiC-O (the RiC Ontology) lets Heratio model the relationships that a flat catalogue loses: an agent that created records, later held them, and was related to other agents over time. This graph view supports richer provenance and complements, rather than replaces, the ISAD(G) tree.

In practice. Describe shared context at the highest sensible level and rely on inheritance instead of copying it into every child record. It saves cataloguing time and, crucially, means a correction at fonds level propagates everywhere rather than leaving stale duplicates.

Key takeaways

  • Description is multi-level and ISAD(G)-based, honouring provenance and original order
  • Authority control via ISAAR(CPF)/ISDIAH keeps access points consistent and reusable
  • RiC adds a graph view of agents, records and relationships alongside the hierarchy

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Last modified: Saturday, 1 August 2026, 11:03 AM