Arrangement is the process of organising records to reflect their provenance and original order, and of grouping them into a logical hierarchy that reveals how they were created and used. It is intellectual work as much as physical work: the archivist establishes relationships and boundaries, then reflects that structure in the physical or digital storage. Good arrangement makes description possible and access meaningful.

The governing rule is respect for provenance and original order. Rather than reclassifying records by subject, the archivist preserves the aggregations the creator formed, because those aggregations are themselves evidence.

The levels of arrangement

Archival material is arranged in a nested hierarchy, from the most general to the most specific:

  • Fonds: the whole body of records created by one person, family or organisation.
  • Series: records grouped because they result from the same activity or filing system.
  • File (or unit): a folder or bundle of related documents.
  • Item: the smallest intellectually indivisible unit, such as a single letter.

Working with original order

When the creator's order is intact and useful, keep it. When records arrive in chaos with no discernible order, the archivist may impose a logical arrangement - but this is a reconstruction and should be documented as such. Never destroy surviving evidence of original order simply because it seems inconvenient; that order can answer questions the records themselves cannot.

In practice. Arrangement and description are increasingly "more product, less process" - do the minimum needed to make material findable and safe, describe at series or file level first, and only descend to item level where use or value justifies the effort.

Intellectual versus physical arrangement

Intellectual arrangement is the logical structure recorded in the finding aid; physical arrangement is where boxes and files actually sit on the shelf. The two need not match - fragile or oversized items can be stored separately for preservation while remaining intellectually part of their series, linked by clear location notes.

Key takeaways

  • Arrangement expresses provenance and original order through a nested hierarchy.
  • The fonds-series-file-item levels structure both arrangement and later description.
  • Intellectual and physical arrangement can diverge as long as links are documented.

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Last modified: Saturday, 1 August 2026, 10:37 AM