Lexicon /ˈlɛksɪk(ə)n/ The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge.

Origin: Early 17th century: modern Latin, from Greek lexikon (biblion) ‘(book) of words’, from lexis ‘word’, from legein ‘speak’. (Oxford Dictionary)

70 Degrees– According to the National Archives, 70° Fahrenheit is the preferred temperature that is optimal for the preservation of artifacts. It is the degree in which archival materials and exhibitions should be protected for long term conservation.

Archive– a physical or digital place where artifacts are stored and preserved

Collection– a series of items that belong together based on a central theme(s)

Conservation– extending the lifespan of an artifact which includes fine art through scientific methods; see the glossary for a complete definition

Content Management System– an archival database that adheres to metadata principles such as Dublin Core

Classification– identifying an object’s place within a collection

Crowdsource– asking a group of people for ideas or contributions to a project

Curate– selecting a series of items based on a central theme(s) for an exhibit

Design – a complete marketing plan for your organization with a branding guide

Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) – is designed for description of archival material maintained by the Society of American Archivists

Docent– a museum tour guide who contextualizes a collection for the visiting public of an exhibit

Dublin Core– is a Encoding Standard=Data Structure Standards. It “is metadata designed for interoperability on the basis of Semantic Web or Linked Data principles. Metadata in this style uses Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) as global identifiers both for the things described by the metadata and for the terms used to describe them (vocabularies). It is “a set of fifteen generic, widely used elements — Creator, Contributor, Publisher, Title, Date, Language, Format, Subject, Description, Identifier, Relation, Source, Type, Coverage, and Rights.” These principles are used in our content management system.

Ephemera– temporary or items that are meant to be short lived such as marketing materials like brochures, programs, and posters

Exhibit– displaying thematically organized objects for the public’s access

Finding Aid– A structured summary that contains the extent of a collection

Library– a physical and digital repository that organizes archival collections based on hierarchical data principles

Metadata– structured data about an item that can be a website, physical object, books, images, and other items that has been that typically is created by an Archivist/Registrar. It is data about data.

Museums– are “democratizing, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artifacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people” according to the International Council of Museums.

Nomenclature– a standard naming system with rules used in classification

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)- detects text within an image that aids with automatic document transcription

Permanent Collection– a series of exhibitions which are always available to the public to view

Provenance– the ownership record for an archival material

Preservation– maintaining the condition of an archival object

Respect des fonds– keeping original records together as they were received

Reserve Library– a non-loaning organization that provides archival material to the public for their research purposes

Traveling Exhibit– institutions that loan their displays to other borrowing institutions for a stipulated length of time

XML– “an Extensible Markup Language for specifying the contents of metadata records as structured documents.”

*See A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology by Richard Pearce-Moses for a complete list. Additionally, we recommend the Dublin Core Metadata Glossary. You can also consult the SAA Dictionary for more terms.