Building upon recent efforts of Canadian archivists to improve the development and application of technology in order to achieve more effective control of and access to their holdings, this report contains the deliberations and recommendations of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards, which held seven meetings between April 1984 and March 1985. The report begins with a brief history of attempts to establish standards as a means of demonstrating what progress has been made and what remains to be done. The first of four chapters then discusses--on a theoretical level--issues related to description and the standards needed to establish a conceptual framework within which to analyze the current situation and to present recommendations for future development of standards. The second chapter explores the variety of standards available, with particular emphasis on those most relevant to archival needs. The third chapter describes a survey conducted by the group, who sent a questionnaire to 361 Canadian repository libraries (response rate = 56%) to obtain information about the current construction of archival finding aids. The data are analyzed and the findings discussed. The fourth chapter presents the 35 recommendations made by the group together with a brief discussion of each recommendation. A concluding statement encourages Canadian archivists to take advantage of automation and launch the development of descriptive standards. Four appendixes are provided: a list of the respondents; the survey questionnaire; an outline of the data fields in an archival database; and a 267-item annotated bibliography. (CGD)