Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) is a standard used for describing materials in archives. First adopted by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in March 2004, DACS was updated with a Second Edition in 2013. DACS is broken down into a set of rules used in crafting archival descriptions, and guidelines for creating authority records in archives. Overview When fully adopted in 2005, DACS replaced Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts, the previous SAA archival cataloging standard. It is the United States implementation of ISAD(G). DACS consists of two parts: Part I, Describing Archival Materials, and Part II, Archival Authority Records. DACS is concerned with providing a framework for creating useful tools for researchers in archives through the description of records, historical agents, historical activities, and the relationships between them. The elements and frameworks of DACS are closely related to both the library-focused cataloging rules of Resource Description and Access (RDA) and the international description standards formed by ISAD(G). The main goal of archival description is to assist users in finding the documents they are looking for through the creation of access tools such as catalogs or finding aids, and DACS exists to provide a standard for creating those tools. DACS has now been widely adopted by the archival community throughout the United States. It is currently maintained by the SAA's Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard and the most up-to-date version is hosted on their GitHub. Principles of DACS Current DACS principles, 2019-present Revision history TS-DACS began re-evaluating Describing Archives: A Content Standard for alignment with current archival theory and practice in 2016. Following an initial review over the summer of that year, TS-DACS organized an in-person principles revision meeting that took place concurrently with the SAA annual meeting in Atlanta. Later in 2016, TS-DACS requested funds from SAA to facilitate another meeting of TS-DACS members and other invited experts to take place outside of the annual meeting. This request was eventually granted and the second principles revision meeting took place in March of 2017. TS-DACS put out a call for comment on the revised principles in June of 2017. Feedback from this open comment period was analyzed and incorporated throughout 2018. In August of 2018, a final call for comment was published. The final revised principles were submitted to SAA's council and approved in May 2019. Current principles Archival description expresses professional ethics and values. Users