This work explores the current standards of archival description and attempts to provide some clues to aid comprehension and application. Perhaps also for modification? Review issues related to the definition and identification of the main entities documentaries, debates about the ipio princ of origin, conceptual models of description and data structures. Primarily examines the standards proposed by the International Council on Archives, but also other rules in Spain and other countries have developed those and the Australian series system metadata schemas or electronic document. The way we describe documents depends largely on the way we think about the objectives of the services file. In this text, the starting point is a particular interpretation of file systems as complex systems that may include all stages of the life cycle of documents and can meet targets for administrative and cultural at the same time. Moreover, the way in which we describe the documents also depends on technological tools available. Right now we are witnessing a transformation of hierarchical information model to one based on relational methods, derived largely from importation by the archival certain techniques of design and analysis of databases. No doubt, this adaptation involves a review of the theoretical positions of our discipline to the extent that these are always a response to practical needs.