Creator Description: Encoded Archival Context

Abstract

SUMMARY Encoded Archival Context (EAC) is an ongoing initiative within the international archival community to design and implement a prototype standard based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) for encoding descriptions of record creators: individuals, families, and organizations that create records. EAC is intended to represent the descriptive data prescribed in the International Council for Archives' International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (ISAAR(CPF)). Description of record creators is an essential component of the preservation of the documentary evidence of human activity. A standard for creator description has many professional as well as economic benefits. EAC promises to enhance access and understanding of records as well as provide an important resource independent of record description. EAC also promises to enable repositories to share creator description. Given the costs of authority control and description, such sharing potentially will be an important economic benefit. As an XML-based standard, EAC specifies the semantic and structural features of creator description. The developers of EAC hope that the archival community will be able to collaborate with similar efforts in other cultural heritage communities.