A finding aid is a document that describes the contents, organization, and context of an archival collection. It is the researcher’s map to a body of records — explaining what exists, how it is arranged, and how to request specific materials for examination. What It Is Archives are not libraries. Library materials are individually catalogued: each book has a record, a call number, a discrete identity. Archival collections are processed differently.

Provenance, in archival science, refers to the origin of a body of records — specifically, the person, family, organization, or institution that created or accumulated them. It is the foundational principle of archival arrangement and description, and it is distinct from the art world’s use of the same word. What It Is The principle of provenance — known in French as respect des fonds — holds that records from different creators must be kept separate and not intermingled, even if their subject matter overlaps.

At some point, the internet stopped being a place you explore and became a place you filter. There’s just too much of everything—opinions, tools, AI-generated noise, recycled insights pretending to be original. What separates people now isn’t access to information, it’s the quality of what they choose to trust. That’s where a personal reference stack comes in. Not a productivity system, not another note-taking rabbit hole—something sharper. A deliberately constructed set of sources, tools, and people you rely on when it actually matters.