檔案管理的核心是檔案資料的編排與描述，對於蒐集到館的檔案資料進行實體檔案的整理工作，並對於檔案的智能內容進行資訊的描述工作，其最終目的是促進檔案資訊便於查檢與利用。目前北美地區在檔案內容的描述標準的發展，以美國與加拿大兩國為主。兩國近年來對於檔案內容的描述標準的制定十分積極，較著名的三種標準分別為：美國檔案人員學會(SAA)公布之檔案描述內容標準(DACS)、美國國家檔案暨文件署(NARA)的檔案生命週期資料需求指南(LCDRG)及加拿大檔案描述規則(RAD)。由於上述三種新的檔案描述內容標準，對於北美地區的檔案描述產生巨大的變革，因而本文針對此三種檔案描述標準進行深入的了解，分別比較其制訂機構與應用、檔案描述概念性原則、描述標準的架構、描述項目、描述項目的組成與編碼等五項。

Both arrangement and description are core elements of archivalmanagement. The task of archival management consists of processing physical archives and making descriptions of their intellectual contents, for the purpose of facilitating easy and convenient access to information. DACS, LCDRG, and RAD are the three most prevailing archival description standards applied in North America, which have produced significant impact on archival institutions across the region. This paper attempts to compare the differences among these three archival description standards from the following five aspects: institutions in charge of the respective formulation and application of the standards, their respective conceptual principles of archival description, their respective structures of description standard, the specific description elements that compose the different standards, and their individual constitution and coding of the description elements.