Encoded Archival Description Tag Library, Version 2002

EAD Elements

<acqinfo> Acquisition Information

Description:

The immediate source of the materials being described and the circumstances under which they were received. Includes donations, transfers, purchases, and deposits.

After opening a Paragraph <p> within <acqinfo>, optional subelements may be used to tag separately such common acquisition information as the name of the source, e.g., <persname> or <corpname>; the <date> the materials were received; or the accession number <num> assigned to them. The <address> element could be used to document the address of the source, and the AUDIENCE attribute could be set to "internal," if the address information should only be available to authorized staff. Note that the accession number may also serve as the <unitid> and be encoded as such within a <did>.

For detailed information about items acquired and then subsequently alienated from the materials being described, the Separated Material <separatedmaterial> element can be used. It designates items related by provenance that have been physically removed from the materials being described.

The Custodial History <custodhist> element can be used for information about the chain of ownership before the materials reached the immediate source of acquisition.

In EAD Version 1.0 <acqinfo> was a subelement of Administrative Information <admininfo>, which has been deprecated in EAD 2002 (see Appendix B). The new Description Group <descgrp> element, which can group any of the <did>-level elements (except the Description of Subordinate Components <dsc>), may be used to wrap elements where a group heading is desirable. The <descgrp> element can be used to replace <admininfo> where it has been used as a wrapper when converting finding aids encoded in EAD V1.0 to EAD 2002.

The <acqinfo> element is comparable to ISAD(G) data element 3.2.4 and MARC field 541.

May contain:

acqinfo, address, blockquote, chronlist, head, list, note, p, table

May occur within:

acqinfo, archdesc, archdescgrp, c, c01, c02, c03, c04, c05, c06, c07, c08, c09, c10, c11, c12, custodhist, descgrp

Attributes:

Examples:

1.
<acqinfo>

	<p>Transfer from <corpname>National Park Service, </corpname>

<date type="accession">1945</date>. Accession number 
<num type="accession">45.22</num>.</p>

</acqinfo>

2.
<acqinfo>

	<p>Source unknown. Originally deposited in University Library, transferred to 
        Department of Palaeography, <date normal="19580424">24 April 1958</date>.</p>

</acqinfo>