what are fonds?

If you have visited a Canadian archive in the past, you may have heard an unfamiliar term while discussing their contents: fonds.

It refers to a group of documents and artifacts from a single origin, and the idea is to keep the archives of specific people or institutions together, rather than separate them by type. 

Commonly used in European archives, this French word has made its way into the everyday lexicon of archivists in Canada. In American archives, this same thing is called a collection. It is the highest level of organisation of the materials of a specific person or institution; within it you will often find series (but not always), then files, then specific items. Most archives have described the contents at the fonds level, but for a number of reasons, may not have had the opportunity to provide descriptions at a more granular level. 

Typed speech notes for a protest on factory worker conditions

ID: 1243_[2]_27

As an example, we have in our archival collection the Lea Roback fonds (#1243), which includes all of the documents that were received when Lea Roback donated her photographs, personal and professional documents, and other materials such as political pins in the late 1990s. Series are a way of intellectually arranging (not physically rearranging) records in a given fonds based on shared subject, theme, event, and occasionally media type. For example, series 3 contains Lea’s correspondence, while series 7 contains her photographs. 

Lea Roback in her home

ID: 1243_PR14796

Some donors make one deposit to the archives with all the items they want to include; this is also often the case when someone passes away, and their documents are acquired by the archives through a relative or loved one. Others may provide their donations in several instalments over a range of years. This is especially the case with organisations' fonds, where they may have a scheduled deposit of their institutional records every few years. It is also possible when a donor is still living to acquire personal archives over a period of time, as is the case with our Rita Brianksky fonds (#1291).

Wendy playing the guitar, 1969, by Rita Briansky

ID: 1291_[79]_2