Summary

The entities identified and defined in the model are the primary objects of interest for professionals that manage records in the context of origin and use (records managers) or that manage records retained for long-term preservation and access (archivists). From the perspective of records managers, the identified entities are deemed essential in providing the intellectual context that serves physical management, preservation, discovery, use, and understanding of the records over the course of their history.
The core archival entities are the entities that are considered essential in describing records and the contexts within records emerge and are used over time. Description of these entities thus captures the origins of records and their ongoing history. The core entities are Record Resource, Instantiation, Agent, and Activity. These entities are core entities as together, in relation to one another represent agents acting in the world while employing recorded information to facilitate the objectives of the activity. The recorded information is evidence of the performance of the activity. Identifying and describing the agents, the activities which they perform, and the records generated in the course of the performance represents a fundamental responsibility of records managers and archivists.
The core entities are similar to existing professional descriptive standards, both record management and archival standards. They align relatively closely with the existing ICA description standards: ISAD, ISAAR, and ISDF as well as the records management standard ISO 23081-1 .

The RiC Entities are:
RiC-E01 Thing
RiC-E02 Record Resource
RiC-E03 Record Set
RiC-E04 Record
RiC-E05 Record Part
RiC-E06 Instantiation
RiC-E07 Agent
RiC-E08 Person
RiC-E09 Group
RiC-E10 Family
RiC-E11 Corporate Body
RiC-E12 Position
RiC-E13 Mechanism
RiC-E14 Event
RiC-E15 Activity
RiC-E16 Rule
RiC-E17 Mandate
RiC-E18 Date
RiC-E19 Single Date
RiC-E20 Date Range
RiC-E21 Date Set
RiC-E22 Place

Details

These entities are based on established or emerging record management and archival professional practice and align relatively closely with the existing ICA description standards: ISAD, ISAAR, and ISDF. They also align with the Australian Series System (ASA, 2007)(McKemmish, Acland & Reed, 1999), Monash University SPIRT recordkeeping metadata model, the ISO 23081-1 standard (ISO, 2009 and 2017), and Chris Hurley (2009, 2012).

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• Australian Society of Archivists Committee on Descriptive Standards, Describing Archives in Context: A Guide to the Australasian Practice, Australian Society of Archivists, Dickson, 2007. Details

Online Resources

• Hurley, C., 'Hurley's Common Practice Rules for the Documentation of Archives and Other Records', 2009, https://www.descriptionguy.com/images/WEBSITE/hcpr-hurleys-common-practice-rules-2009.pdf. Details
• Hurley, C., 'Some Things Archivists Do…..Description & Arrangement', Presentation to an ASA Workshop on Description (the Australian Way) held in conjunction with ICA Congress, Brisbane, 2012, 2012, https://www.descriptionguy.com/description.html#1. Details
• McKemmish, S., Acland, G. and Reed, B., Towards a framework for standardising recordkeeping metadata: the Australian recordkeeping metadata schema, Records Management Journal, vol. 9, 1999, pp. 173-198 pp, https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007249. Details