Archival processing is the act of surveying, arranging, describing, and performing basic preservation activities on the recorded material of an individual, family, or organization after they are permanently transferred to an archive. A person engaging in this activity is known as an archival processor, archival technician, or archivist. Ideally, when an archives receives a collection of papers or a group of records, they will have been arranged by the originator (the original person, persons, or organization that created or assembled the collection or records) and boxed up for the move to the archives in such a way that this order has been preserved. However, collections and record groups are often semi-organized, and sometimes lack any discernible organization. Observing the organization of delivered materials, imposing organization where it is lacking, then describing the organized material are tasks covered by the terms "archival processing", "arrangement and description", "archival listing", or "cataloguing". Collection surveying The first step in archival processing is to survey the collection. The goal of a survey is to gain an understanding of the originator, determine the context of the creation of the collection, to observe the material's overall size and scope, to ascertain if the collection has access limitations, to locate any existing finding aids submitted with the collection, and to discover any underlying organizational scheme in the collection or record group. Collection surveys should be carried out with an archival principle, respect des fonds, in mind. In following respect des fonds, which may be translated as "taking into consideration the entirety of the collection", the survey must include activity to ascertain whether the materials in hand are all, or only a portion, of the entire fonds. If the archivist is in a repository that holds other parts of the fonds, he or she should assemble a plan of work that encompasses, or at least acknowledges, the entire set of materials from the same originator. Surveying collections is a strictly observational task, without making any changes or rearrangements to the materials. Because many organizations require use of a template or worksheet to ensure the surveys are thorough and consistent, the typical end products of a collection survey is a completed survey worksheet and a processing plan. After the completion of the survey, the materials may be made available to researchers without additional processing, stored for future processing when resources are available, or progress to processing immediately. Arrangement Arrangement of