description is a key procedure of the archive digitization and it decides the effect of the use of digitized archives. From the domestic practice of digitization of historical archives, the description work is time-consuming and become a bottleneck which prolongs the whole process of the digitization. The description work tends to be finished by stages and there are two description methods including the insourcing and the outsourcing. Several problems exist in the description work: the resources of the historical archives are usually in large quantities, not well-collected and the writing could be difficult to identify, the description group lacks professionals,the description standard’s content is incomplete and not unified, the work environment affects the workers’ health. In order to improve the description work of historical archives, the program of work should be based on the national strategy, input should be increased; meanwhile we should enhance the talent training to augment the talent reserve; the description standard should be completed to increase the accuracy of digitization and finally, we should optimize processes and innovate technology, and we can reduce the description costs and increase description efficiency by using the method of crowdsourcing and by making a full use of the social computing capacity.