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Key Concepts & Glossary

The Archiver uses standard archival terminology. This page explains every key term in plain English so you always know exactly what you're looking at.

Core terms​

Accession​

An Accession is a batch of files you upload together — like a box of documents from a single donor or project. It's the primary unit of work in The Archiver. When you upload files, you're creating an accession.

Example: "Smith Family Letters 1920–1945" might be one accession containing 50 scanned letters.

Fonds​

A Fonds (plural: Fonds) is the top-level grouping for a collection — named after the person, family, or organisation that created the records. It's the most important concept in archival arrangement.

Example: "The Smith Family Fonds" might contain all records created by or about the Smith family, organised into series.

note

The word "Fonds" comes from French and is standard archival terminology worldwide. It's pronounced "fawn" (like the baby deer).

Sub-fonds​

A Sub-fonds is a subdivision of a Fonds, used when a collection has distinct sub-groups that deserve their own section.

Example: The Smith Family Fonds might have a Sub-fonds for "John Smith's Business Records" and another for "Mary Smith's Personal Papers".

Series​

A Series is a group of related records within a Fonds, usually sharing a common function, subject, or format.

Example: "Correspondence", "Financial Records", and "Photographs" might each be Series within the Smith Family Fonds.

Sub-series​

A Sub-series is a further subdivision of a Series, used when a series is large and has clearly distinct sub-groups.

Example: The "Correspondence" Series might have Sub-series for "Personal Letters" and "Business Letters".

Finding Aid​

A Finding Aid is a document that describes a collection's contents, organisation, and context — it helps researchers understand what's in an archive and how to navigate it. The Archiver generates Finding Aids automatically from your structured collection.

Dossier​

A Dossier is a research folder that pulls together items from across your archive to explore a theme or topic. Unlike a Fonds (which reflects where records came from), a Dossier is created by you for a specific research question.

Example: A Dossier called "Smith Family During World War II" might pull together letters, photographs, and documents from multiple accessions.

Provenance​

Provenance means where a record came from — who created it and how it ended up in the archive. It's one of the most important principles in archival work: records should be kept with information about their origin.

Example: "These letters were donated by Jane Smith, granddaughter of John Smith, in 2023."

Technical terms​

OCR​

OCR stands for "Optical Character Recognition". It's a technology that converts scanned images of text (like a photo of a typed letter) into actual searchable digital text. The Archiver runs OCR automatically on all images and scanned documents.

EAD3​

EAD3 (Encoded Archival Description) is a standard XML file format used by archival software worldwide for sharing collection descriptions. When you export your archive in EAD3 format, other archival systems like ArchivesSpace can import it directly.

BagIt​

BagIt is a standard packaging format used to transfer digital collections between institutions. A "bag" contains your files plus a manifest (a list of all files with checksums to verify nothing has been corrupted or lost).

Checksum​

A checksum is a unique fingerprint generated from a file's contents. It's used to verify that a file hasn't been corrupted or altered. The Archiver automatically generates checksums for all files.

Tier​

The Archiver has different tiers (subscription levels) with different storage and processing limits:

FeatureFreeProTeamEnterprise
Items/month202501,0005,000
Storage500 MB10 GB100 GBUnlimited
Data kept for7 daysForeverForeverForever
Fonds & Dossiers✗✓✓✓
Export formatsCSV, JSONAll formatsAll formatsAll formats
Team membersSolo onlySolo onlyUp to 10Unlimited