The purpose of these guidelines is to provide archivists, librarians, local government officials, and staff of repositories responsible for preserving historical records in New York State with basic instructions on arrangement and description practices. The guidelines: provide information on describing archival and manuscript materials at a collective level; supply general directions for their arrangement and description; and identify the manuals and books where more specific instructions, rules, or information can be found. In the first two of seven sections, an introduction to the archival process and types of archival finding aids and archival information systems are provided. The third section presents information about the uses of archival description and the Machine Readable Cataloging for Archival and Manuscripts Control (MARC AMC) format. The fourth section presents general directions for and describes two core principles of arrangement: the principle of provenance, and the principle of original order (or "respect des fonds"). The fifth section addresses various facets of archival description, e.g., assigning main entry and title, describing physical characteristics, providing historical and background information, describing intellectual contents, providing access through indexing, and creating container and folder lists. Information about Documentary Heritage Program workshops on arrangement and description conclude the manual. Examples of accession level records, manuscript collection descriptions, and archival series descriptions are appended. After each example is a second version of the description showing the use of MARC AMC fields, as well as container or folder lists for most of the descriptions. A basic bibliography on archival description lists general works; description tools, cataloging rules, and manuals; vocabulary lists; and archival journals. A bibliography on the MARC AMC format lists general works and works on MARC documentation. (MAB)