From typescript finding aids to EAD (Encoded Archival Description) : A university case study

Journal of the Society of Archivists

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 2001, Pages

  Johnston, Dorothy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0035315588     PISSN: 00379816     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00379810120037496     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. This article developed from a presentation, primarily concerned with Nottingham's experience as contributor to the Higher Education Archives Hub, which was given at the Society of Archivists' EAD/XML Seminar in August 2000 at the Public Record Office. I am extremely grateful to my colleagues Claire Emery, Elizabeth Archer and Julie Allinson for their comments and assistance in this extended version.
2. The Research Libraries Group's Archival Resources programme currently includes more than 15 000 full-text retrieval finding aids, based on EAD files linked to MARC-AMC records at collection level.
3. Since 1995 many colleagues have been involved in the programmes referred to in this article. The majority have worked on content creation, and contributed to our growing understanding of descriptive standards, terminology control and the problems affecting navigation and access points. Progress in the implementation of EAD has been the particular responsibility of Claire Emery, Assistant Computing Officer, with advice and practical assistance from Elizabeth Archer, Kathryn Summerwill and their colleagues. This article summarises the experience. It is not concerned with the detail of encoding or other technical elements of the work.
4. See also A. Chapman, N. Kingsley and L. Dempsey, Full Disclosure. Releasing the value of library and archive collections, Library and Information Commission LIS Report 10 (London, 1999).
5. M. Cook, 'Standards of archival description', JSA, vol 8 (1987), p 188.
6. The official EAD website , which is hosted by the Network Development & MARC Standards Office at the Library of Congress, gives access to useful background information and guides, as well as links to implementing sites. It also explains some of the technical terms used in this article, for instance element and tag names. For further information on the development of EAD see American Archivist, vol 20 (1997).
7. Such finding aids are not uncommon in UK repositories. The existence of a reference code and basic description at item level is an essential part of the conversion challenge, and one of the features which has limited the ability of UK implementers to follow in detail the EAD conversion models developed in the USA where the container list still dominates.
8. This account gives no detail of the generous early support from the university's Computing Centre and the investigation of conversion procedures. STATUS and then BRS Search were initially considered as tools for on-line access. The change of direction after 1995 was due to awareness of new archival and technical developments, particularly EAD and the internet.
9. See Joint Information Systems Committee, Accessing our Humanities Collections: a subject guide for researchers (London, 2000). Various reports concerning the NFF initiative can be accessed from .
10. HTML is a set of pre-defined tags used for displaying data over the web.
11. Accounts of EAD developments in UK universities can be found in Richard Higgins, 'Standardised languages for data exchange and storage. The Encoded Archival Description: using SGML to create permanent electronic handlists', Business Archives Principles and Practice, vol 73 (1997), pp 33-47; Richard Higgins, 'A case study of EAD implementation at Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 221-234; and Julie Allinson, 'Enabling armchair delivery: approaches to encoding finding aids at the University of Liverpool', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 253-276.
12. Accounts of EAD developments in UK universities can be found in Richard Higgins, 'Standardised languages for data exchange and storage. The Encoded Archival Description: using SGML to create permanent electronic handlists', Business Archives Principles and Practice, vol 73 (1997), pp 33-47; Richard Higgins, 'A case study of EAD implementation at Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 221-234; and Julie Allinson, 'Enabling armchair delivery: approaches to encoding finding aids at the University of Liverpool', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 253-276.
13. Accounts of EAD developments in UK universities can be found in Richard Higgins, 'Standardised languages for data exchange and storage. The Encoded Archival Description: using SGML to create permanent electronic handlists', Business Archives Principles and Practice, vol 73 (1997), pp 33-47; Richard Higgins, 'A case study of EAD implementation at Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 221-234; and Julie Allinson, 'Enabling armchair delivery: approaches to encoding finding aids at the University of Liverpool', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 253-276.
14. The Portland and Newcastle Collections, on which the bulk of the work was concentrated, include the department's best known and most heavily requested holdings.
15. National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United Kingdom (Cambridge, 1987), unit 15.
16. Two of the NFF projects involved original cataloguing, but the same standards and level of detail were applied. The Buchanan Collection of diplomatic correspondence, acquired in the late 1980s, had only an incomplete summary list, made many years previously by the National Register of Archives. The Portland (London) Collection of legal, financial and estate records was listed in more detail than would be usual, to limit the need to handle its very fragile contents.
17. This brief account necessarily oversimplifies the uncertainties, particularly the manipulation of indexes, which were known to lie ahead.
18. Papers of Lord George Bentinck, Pw L.
19. SGML is an ISO standard (ISO 8879) for the definition and creation of digital documents which can be delivered, presented and manipulated in a system-independent manner. EAD defines the structural elements of a finding aid and their interrelationships, using the syntax of SGML.
20. Although beta guidelines had been available since 1996, the early implementers had fewer tools or models and inevitably varied in their encoding practices. Today, the essential tools for EAD use are Encoded Archival Description. Tag library, version 1.0 (Chicago, Society of American Archivists, 1998), and Encoded Archival Description. Application guidelines, version 1 (Chicago, Society of American Archivists, 1999), both available on-line via the EAD website.
21. Although beta guidelines had been available since 1996, the early implementers had fewer tools or models and inevitably varied in their encoding practices. Today, the essential tools for EAD use are Encoded Archival Description. Tag library, version 1.0 (Chicago, Society of American Archivists, 1998), and Encoded Archival Description. Application guidelines, version 1 (Chicago, Society of American Archivists, 1999), both available on-line via the EAD website.
22. For an outline of the delivery options for EAD files see Application guidelines, pp 149-157.
23. Panorama Publisher is a commercial program. A version, Panorama Free, was at that stage available for internet users to download without cost from SoftQuad.
24. The establishment of the structure of the site, the stylesheets which determine the presentation of EAD in DynaWeb, the separate mounting of search forms for indexes, and the software constraints which affect the conversion and have modified some of the orginal aims are therefore not considered here.
25. Thus for instance an output specification running on levels 2 and 3 can produce a summary guide. For MAD definitions, see Margaret Procter and Michael Cook, A Manual of Archival Description, 3rd edn (Aldershot, 2000).
26. The original brief finding aid for one of these groups (3rd Duke of Portland) amounted to 379 pages; its 11 000 records in their upgraded form in MODES comprise 19 megabytes (data) and 50 megabytes (indexes).
27. The full text of the finding aid falls within , which not only identifies the highest level of description but includes below this any further levels of description or components.
28. The principal index fields have been personal and corporate names, identified separately under record creation and record content, place-names, subjects £.nd document type. The National Council on Archives' Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names (London, 1997) provided a basis, although its final release after in-house rules foi the project were established has meant lack of conformity on some issues (eg ordering of elements) and its provision for foreign names was found to be inadequate. For other index terms, standard gazetteers and in-house rules were used. Subjects at collection level are indexed using Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH); at lower levels inhouse rules apply, in accordance with indexing principles.
29. Uncertainty about the searching of index terms was a serious handicap in cataloguing, affecting the establishment of guidelines for the presentation of elements within the terms (eg title in names) and cross references.
30. Index terms in refer to the creation or accumulation of the archival unit being described (fonds, series, item etc); within they provide the key access points for the descriptive content of the finding aid.
31. The data to be searched through FAUN indexes depends on one's location in the system. Within a particular collection, it searches on that file. At a higher level it searches on the group in question or across all the collections.
32. International Council on Archives, General International Standard Archival Description (1994), 2nd edn (2000).
33. The Hub is accessible at where further information about the background to the development can be found. It is about to enter a second period of development and expansion, 2001-3.
34. See Paul B. Watry, 'Delivering the goods: constructing a next-generation information retrieval system for distribution of EAD finding aids', Archives and Museum Informatics, vol 12 (1998), pp 243-252.
35. This mapping, provided in Application guidelines, p 236, presented few problems, although the equivalence is sometimes not precise. This is the case with ISAD(G) Associated Material and EAD's , with the latter referring exclusively to provenance relationships. This has not been resolved in the second edition of ISAD(G). Provision for a distinction between associated material in the host institution and associated material elsewhere, which users might find helpful, is not explicitly made in either ISAD(G) or EAD.
36. Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edn (London, 1988); in general with the guidance of Steven L. Hensen, Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: a cataloguing manual for archival repositories, historical societies and manuscript libraries, 2nd edn (Chicago, 1989).
37. Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edn (London, 1988); in general with the guidance of Steven L. Hensen, Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: a cataloguing manual for archival repositories, historical societies and manuscript libraries, 2nd edn (Chicago, 1989).
38. International Council on Archives, International Standard Archival Authority Records for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (Ottawa, 1996).
39. Guidelines, which will be further refined with the support of a data editor, are available for the second phase of the Hub.
40. There are occasions when different purposes justify some parallel manipulation. At Nottingham, for instance, finding aids are currently being offered both in HTML and in EAD (FAUN), to meet different access requirements. With future possible developments in XML (Extensible Markup Language) the burden of such alternative presentations may be reduced.