1.1 Introduction

This revised CRS Manual is designed for ease of navigation across and within parts of the manual.

Each link is shown in bright blue and underlined.  Click on the underlined text to go to the destination shown. Links already visited or on the same page are shown in purple.   Use your browser back and forward buttons and the links on each page to consult the content of the CRS Manual.

An explanation of the structure and content style follows.

1.2 Basic Structure

The CRS Manual has two parts, made up of chapters, sections and subsections.  The first part comprises the title-page, description policy statement and an introduction to the CRS System.  The second part has chapters detailing descriptive standards for each level of the CRS System:  Organisation, Agency, Person, Series, and Item, and also includes a description of  the CRS Thesaurus and Information Summaries.

The whole manual is linked together by several contents pages - a main contents page (text or graphic), leading the reader to the main chapters of the first and second parts.  The contents pages in the second part lead the reader to descriptive standards for registrations in each level of the CRS System.  Each chapter and section is numbered.  These numbers appear on the contents pages and in each webpage.  For each webpage, each heading within each subsection is also numbered for ease of reference.

The CRS Manual does not have an index.  To locate specific information, you need to first identify the part and chapter of the CRS Manual that might contain the information you seek, eg is it related to the overview, organisations, agencies, persons, series, or items, and go to that chapter of the manual.  Next, you identify the relevant section(s) from the list of contents for that chapter of the manual.  To find information in a particular webpage, use the links at the top of and throughout the page, or the find function of your browser.

1.3 Contents Structure

Each contents page for the levels of the CRS System - Organisation, Agency, Person, Series, and Item - has a common structure to enable the reader to navigate the manual  in a familiar way.  These contents pages are structured in this way:

Definition
Registration policy
Depth of description
Descriptive elements
Linkages
Notes
Indicators
Automated elements

The definition, registration policy and depth of description define and set out the context of registration for that particular component of the CRS System.  The descriptive elements, linkages, and notes set out the descriptive standard and how to apply it for each element of a registration.  Indicators describe the purpose and use of visibility and availability indicators within RecordSearch in the context of the CRS System.  Automated elements describe a number of descriptive elements common across all registrations which are automatically assigned to registrations by the system (RecordSearch) during the registration process.

1.4 Webpage structure

At the top of each page is a back button leading to the relevant  contents page.  Under this button is the Manual header, followed by the title of the page itself.    Under the title is a list of main headings that appear on that page, as well as links to all the contents pages.  If there is more than one page for the section, links to other pages of the same section appear here too.  Each subsection is separately titled at the highest level heading for any specific page.

Each page has links at the bottom that take you forward to the next section of the manual, back to the previous section, across to the copyright statement (also the title-page), the main contents page and the other contents page(s), and back to the top of the page. 

Significant headings on each page are numbered in sequence as a subset of each numbered section or subsection on that page.  To reference or cite a specific passage or section in this Manual, state the relevant heading number and heading, and abbreviated chapter title if needed,  eg

(i) to reference the passage on acronyms in a series title of a series registration:
            7.4.2.7.8.3. Acronyms and abbreviations
(ii) to reference the amendments parameters for the registration standard of an agency registration:
            5.2.1.6. Amendments, or
            Agency, .2.1.6. Amendments
(iii) to reference the definition of an item in the CRS System:
            8.1. Item definition

and follow the reference style for online publications as set out in the Archives' Style Guide.

For each page of the part 2 chapters,  each descriptive element of a registration has a standard set of headings centred directly under the element title:  

Definition | Purpose | Relative importance | Sources of information | Standards for content | Amendments | Application notes | Relationship to ISAD(G) / ISAAR(CPF) | Last updated

Their meaning and content are:

Definition and Purpose - define what the descriptive element is and what it is meant to do in a registration.

Relative importance - refers to the descriptive priority this descriptive element has, relative to other elements of a registration.  The category number given refers to the relevant depth of description section of the CRS Manual.

Sources of information - describes possible information sources (in general) that are useful in obtaining data for this particular descriptive element.

Standards for content - defines how the content of this descriptive element is to be recorded, and whether the content is standardised (and in what way).

Amendments - notes the circumstances in which this descriptive element may be amended, or not.

Application notes - has detailed advice for applying the descriptive standard of the descriptive element detailed under the preceding headings.  This advice is usually written with RecordSearch data entry in mind and may illustrate particular formats or data structures specific to RecordSearch that are used in applying the descriptive standard.

Copyright