ISAARCRCPF

ISAARCRCPF is an international framework for archival authority records that extends the established ISAAR(CPF) standard to include corporate records and families, aiming to improve interoperability and consistency in describing entities in archival metadata.

The project builds on ISAAR(CPF) — the International Standard for Archival Authority Records for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families — by adding guidance on corporate records management, family and personal relationships, and cross-institutional linking of authority data.

Origins and purpose: Developed by a consortium of national archives, library associations, and standard-setting bodies in response to proliferating digital records and distributed repositories, ISAARCRCPF seeks a sustainable metadata model that supports authority control across libraries, archives, and museums.

Scope and core concepts: The standard covers authorities for corporate bodies, persons, and families, and selected archival corporate records. It specifies core elements such as preferred name, variant forms, dates, places, functions or roles, relationships to other entities, and identifying numbers; plus sources, language, notes, and a structured set of relationships (direct, indirect, hierarchical). Multilingual forms and stable identifiers are emphasized to enable reliable linking.

Implementation and relation to other standards: ISAARCRCPF is designed to be compatible with ISAD(G), MARC, Dublin Core, and related metadata ecosystems. It provides encoding, provenance, and versioning guidelines and supports digitized records and linked data.

Status and reception: As a proposed standard, pilot implementations have been reported in several archives, with ongoing discussion about governance, training, and resource needs. Proponents point to improved discovery and cross-institution collaboration; critics warn of increased complexity and workload.

See also ISAAR(CPF), ISAD(G), Archival authority records, Metadata standards.