are the fundamental reason for archival description. Because archival description privileges intellectual content in context, descriptive rules apply equally to all records, regardless of format or carrier type. Records, agents, activities, and the relationships between them are the four fundamental concepts that constitute archival description. Archival description must be clear about what archivists know, what they don’t know, and how they know it. Archivists must document and make discoverable the actions they take on records. Archival description is accessible. Archival description should be easy to use, re-use, and share. Each collection within a repository must have an archival description. Archivists must have a user-driven reason to enhance existing archival description. Archival description is a continuous intellectual endeavor. DACS founding principles, 2004-2019 At its first publication, DACS was guided by a set of 8 principles, which serve to elucidate why archival description is separate from library description and to give guidance in applying DACS. These have since been superseded. They were as follows: "Records in archives possess unique characteristics. "The principle of respect des fonds is the basis of archival arrangement and description. "Arrangement involves the identification of groupings within the material. "Description reflects arrangement. "The rules of description apply to all archival materials, regardless of form or medium. "The principles of archival description apply equally to records created by corporate bodies, individuals, or families. "Archival descriptions may be presented at varying levels of detail to produce a variety of outputs. "The creators of archival materials, as well as the materials themselves, must be described." Part I Describing Archival Materials The first part of DACS deals with rules for crafting archival description. It can be broken down into levels of description, with each level adding a layer of complexity. DACS discretely describes these levels as Single Level Required, Single Level Optimum, Single Level Added Value, Multilevel Required, Multilevel Optimum, and Multilevel Added Value. Every level requires that the DACS metadata elements from the previous levels are complete, and that the relationship between the current level and previous levels are clearly presented. The rest of Part I defines the metadata elements required for each level of description. Part II Archival Authority Records The second part of DACS is concerned with creating records that establish the context in which an archival material was created, appraised, and included in an archive. There are three steps in creating these authority records: identifying the people or