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Browse Tips

Browsing Archeion is explained briefly in the 5 minute 2023 "Stepping Into Archeion" video on YouTube.

On the homepage of Archeion you will see a "Browse by" list of categories in the left hand column:

  • Archival Descriptions - these are text descriptions of archival materials put into Archeion by AAO Institutional Members who hold these materials in their archives. Archival descriptions provide information about groupings of archival materials held by collecting institutions such as archives, museums, libraries and historical societies. These descriptions are hierarchical in structure and provide information about the archival records such as titles, dates, subjects, creators, and much more. Explore Archeion's archival descriptions.
  • People and Organizations - these are creators and very important people, organizations, government departments, entities, etc. that are associated with the archival materials. People and Organization records, also called Authority Records, may be individuals, families, or corporate bodies. Corporate bodies include businesses, institutions, governing bodies, social organizations, and any other group that creates and keeps records as a collective. The authority records in Archeion provide information such as the dates of existence of these record creators, their official names and other names, and their biographies or administrative histories. Explore People and Organizations in Archeion.
  • Archival Institutions - these are the AAO Institutional Members that hold archival material, and their profiles provide information about them, including contact information, business hours, collections mandates and policies, institutional histories and more. Explore Institutions in Archeion.
  • Subjects - these are terms associated with archival descriptions in Archeion. Not all institutions use Subject terms in their archival descriptions.
  • Places - these are place names associated with archival descriptions in Archeion. Not all institutions use Place terms in their archival descriptions.
  • Digital Objects - these are digital objects available online in Archeion from AAO Institutional Members. The most common ones are scans of photographs or letters, videos, etc.

Contact an Archives

If you are looking to consult with an archivist at an archival institution, use Archeion's Archival Institution directory search page to find an archive.

Search Tips

If you want to search the archival descriptions from institutions, use Archeion's Archival Description search page. You can use the "With digital objects" filter on this page to find digitized records available online in Archeion. Remember that this page searches all archival descriptions from each institution in Archeion. If you want to search the archival records from a specific institution, you can navigate to their institutional page.

You can also do an Advanced Search on the Archival Description search page. This allows you to combine different search terms, to search for phrases, or to limit your search to a particular institution. Remember to check spelling when entering a term into the search field. If you know the exact word or phrase you want to find, remember to include it in quotes - i.e. "agricultural fair" will return a smaller and more exact set of results, whereas agricultural fair will return many more archival descriptions.

There are also filters for Places, Subjects and People covered in the archival descriptions in Archeion but please note these are used differently per archival institution contributing to Archeion.

Need more help?

If you have any questions about using or contributing to Archeion, please contact the Archeion Coordinator at archeion@aao-archivists.ca.