ISADG

ISADG, often written ISAD(G), stands for the International Standard for Archival Description (General). It is an international standard for describing archival materials to support discovery, access, and interoperability across repositories. Developed by the International Council on Archives, the standard was first issued to provide a common framework for creating finding aids that describe archival holdings and their provenance. A central feature is its hierarchical approach, describing material at levels such as fonds, series, files, and items, and encouraging consistent terminology and structure.

ISAD(G) specifies core metadata elements that should appear in a finding aid, including the identification of the unit (title, inclusive dates, level, and reference code), administrative or biographical history, scope and content, immediate source of acquisition, and related material. Additional sections may cover the extent and physical characteristics, languages of the material, access and use conditions, and notes from the archivist. The standard is designed to be compatible with related archival metadata standards, such as ISAAR(CPF) for authority records, and it supports both paper and digital finding aids.

Adoption of ISAD(G) by national archives, universities, and other institutions promotes consistent description and facilitates cross-institution search and interoperability of archival metadata. In practice, many archives adapt the guidelines to local workflows while preserving the core structure and terminology. The acronym is sometimes written as ISADG in informal usage.