9. Afterword (Table of Contents)

The world of RAD can be a difficult place in which to navigate. However, with practice comes familiarity. As more archival institutions adopt RAD as the descriptive standard, using it easily and effectively becomes more necessary for the working archivist. It is important to remember that many of the rules are designed for specific classes of material or specific levels of description and that RAD can be used to describe collections as well as fonds.

One of the best books available on the subject of archival description is: The Archival Fonds from Theory to Practice, (Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992), edited by Terry Eastwood. In that book, Heather MacNeill's article "The Context is All: Describing a Fonds and its Parts in Accordance with the Rules for Archival Description," (pages 195-225) gives an excellent overview of the concept of the fonds and of multi-level description in general.

The CCA also plans to release an official RAD primer within the year.