Archival Description Research Articles

Cataloging and Digitizing Ephemera

The growing interest in ephemera collections within libraries will necessitate the bibliographic control of materials that do not easily fall into traditional categories. This paper discusses the many challenges confronting catalogers when approaching a mixed collection of unique materials of an ephemeral nature. Based on their experience cataloging a collection of Pennsylvania German broadsides and Fraktur at the Pennsylvania State University, the authors describe the process of deciphering handwriting, preserving genealogical information, deciding on cataloging approaches at the format and field level, and furthering access to the materials through digitization and the Encoded Archival Description finding aid. Observations are made on expanding the skills of traditional book catalogers to include manuscript cataloging, and on project management.

Technology and the Transformation of Archival Description

SUMMARY The emergence of computer and network technologies has presented the archival profession with daunting challenges as well as inspiring opportunities. Archivists have been actively imagining and realizing the application of advanced technologies to their professional functions and activities. Using advanced technologies, archivists have been transforming archival description, freeing it from the limits of traditional media. Markup and database technologies are the two most prevalent methods for representing textual information. Each best represents and exploits textual data with different though complementary characteristics. Researchers and developers are increasingly working to integrate the two technologies. The integration of the two technologies will enable archivists to collaboratively further the ongoing transformation of archival description.

What Are the Boundaries of Archival Context? The SIASFI Project and the Online Guide to the Florence State Archives, Italy

SUMMARY Creating archival descriptions in a digital environment and communicating across the Internet is not the same as traditional paper-based communication. As in other cultural domains, in archival description the medium influences the structure and content of information. The Siasfi Project and the Online Guide to the State Archives of Florence are good examples of these transformations. The article presents the main features of the Online Guide and discusses the theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying its conceptual model which are rooted in the international descriptive standards, ISAD(G) and ISAAR (CPF), as well as in a complex view of what archival context is.

Professional Training for Encoded Archival Description in Europe

SUMMARY This paper represents an abridgement of a panel session that reported on the status of training for archivists in the use of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) in seven countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States). It touched on related archival descriptive standards and practices and associated technological issues.

Different Strokes for Different Folks: Presenting EAD in Three UK Online Catalogues

SUMMARY This article discusses three different online services providing federated access to finding aids relating to archives found in a number of repositories: the Archives Hub, Access to Archives (A2A) and Navigational Aids for the History of Science, Technology and the Environment (NAHSTE). While the scale of the services is very different, a significant similarity is the key role of Encoded Archival Description (EAD). The flexibility of EAD is clearly shown by the different ways it is used for the creation, storage, indexing, searching and presentation of finding aids online reflecting the differing needs of the contributors and users of each service involved.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Description with Innovative Tools–The Example of MidosaXML, Germany

SUMMARY Online description using new Internet technologies, especially XML, is an interesting way to enhance the effectiveness and productivity of archival processing. Users and archivists benefit from the developments, making the achievement of their aims easier. The provenance-based structured presentation of finding aids can be supported with many new helpful functionalities and thus deliver information more directly and with fewer irrelevant results. Using internationally accepted structures, especially EAD and EAC, enhances the ease of research at any place and at any time. On the other hand, archival description work has new tools that facilitate the capturing of data about the archives together with documentation about their processing, including appraisal. This contribution describes how the new functionalities have been tried out with MidosaXML as a pilot application and a productive tool, within a long tradition of being small yet highly sophisticated.

The Metrica Regni Project: The Polish Experience of EAD

SUMMARY The fonds of Crown Chancery Public Register (Metrica Regni) was chosen for the pilot project to introduce Encoded Archival Description (EAD) because of its historical value, typical archival structure and existing finding aids. The rights and privileges granted by Polish kings were recorded in the Register. The oldest books in the series of registrations (Libri Inscriptionum) began in the middle of the fifteenth century. This paper discusses how the Polish EAD project was completed from the fall of 2003 by the staff of the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw. It started with the theoretical background and ended with practical work with a Polish HTML editor–“Pajączek” (Little Spider). The data were prepared and exported from a Microsoft Access database and a Microsoft Word editor into an XML file. After validations and corrections, the stylesheet from the “EAD Cookbook” was adopted as a delivery method. On 29 July 2004 the first version of the inventory of Crown Chancery Public Register in EAD was published on the Web site of the Central Archives of Historical Records.

Concerning Descriptive Standards: A Partnership Between Public Archives and Private Collections in Geneva, Switzerland

SUMMARY This paper presents the results of a partnership begun in 2002 in the field of archival description between the Geneva City Archives (AVG) and the Manuscripts Department of the Public and University Library of Geneva (BPU). This cooperation has allowed the creation of two computer applications, which share technical and conceptual foundations. Both IDEA (at the AVG) and Odyssée (at the BPU) are built with respect to international descriptive standards, notably ISAD(G), as well as the combination of XML and EAD.

Using a Software Package to Publish EAD Encoded Finding Aids: A Practical Approach and Gradual Implementation at the Archives Départementales de la Côte-d'Or, France

SUMMARY The Archives Départementales de la Côte-d'Or chose as a priority for its automation plan the acquisition of a search engine, to publish online archival descriptions and the library catalogue. The Archives deliberately opted for a practical approach, using for the encoding of the finding aids an automatic data export from an archival management system and for their publishing commercial software, selected on the basis of simplicity of use and efficiency rather than flexibility.

An Obligation of Trust: Speculations on Accountability and Description

This paper considers the role of archival description as a tool for institutional and social accountability. The analysis is conducted through a comparison of accountability in traditional post-hoc archival description with description in the continuum-based model of recordkeeping. The author suggests that while both approaches have validity as tools of documentary accountability within their spheres, neither alone can ensure the wider accountability of an institution to itself or to society at large. A broader organizational and social accountability is necessary to ensure the integrity not just of current and historical records, but also of the larger spectrum of actions of the agency responsible for creating and keeping those records.

MADRAS: A Metadata and Archival Description Registration and Analysis System for the Analysis of the Recordkeeping Capabilities of Metadata Sets

This paper discusses progress in the development by the Description Group of the InterPARES 2 (International research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) Project of MADRAS – Metadata and Archival Description Registration and Analysis System, a metadata schema registry and analysis system for the identification, registration, and analysis of existing and prospective metadata schemas, sets, and application profiles relevant to electronic recordkeeping and digital preservation. It updates a paper presented at last year's IS&T Archiving Conference in Washington, DC. This paper will update our progress in the development of the system, describe some of the findings to date, describe our relationship with the developers of ISO 23081 and their influence on MADRAS, and outline some challenges encountered in the development process. InterPARES is an international multi-disciplinary research collaboration emanating out of the archival community that has been working since 1999 to devise new models, methods and automated tools for ensuring the creation and preservation of reliable and authentic electronic records. The second phase of this project, InterPARES 2, which is due to be completed in 2006, integrates the disciplinary perspectives and concerns of the scientific and digital arts communities, as well as those of e-government, and is focusing in particular on the preservation of records generated by emergent interactive, experiential and dynamic systems and processes.

Developing EAD-based archival description at the National Institute for Japanese Language

Developing EAD-based archival description at the National Institute for Japanese Language

Enhancing the EAD: Encoded archival description of sensitive medical data

Enhancing the EAD: Encoded archival description of sensitive medical data

Archival description, information retrieval, and the construction of thesauri in israeli archives

Archival description, information retrieval, and the construction of thesauri in israeli archives

The Correlation of Archival Education and Job Requirements Since the Advent of Encoded Archival Description

ABSTRACT Historical methodology and library techniques have been the basis for archival education, but arguments of placement of an archival program within the university and the desirable degree for professional archivists have led to inconsistencies in graduate school curricula. The author conducted a study to determine if graduate schools adequately prepared new archivists for employment in the archival profession. The study examined job advertisements in Archival Outlook from 1997 to 2003 to determine qualifications institutions require and prefer in prospective archivists, the educational level preferred, geographic location of jobs advertised, certification requirements, and graduate school curricula in regard to teaching Encoded Archival Description.

Metadata Standards for Archival Control: An Introduction to EAD and EAC

SUMMARY This article provides a concise guide to the structure and use of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and Encoded Archival Context (EAC) metadata standards. After a brief outline of archival description, the finding aid, and the objectives behind EAD, the structure of EAD is examined in detail. Discussion of all of the important elements in the EAD document-type definition (DTD) will be supplemented with examples of actual finding aids and their encoding, with attention to the common necessity of “reengineering” existing finding aids. The current status of EAD implementation and some issues affecting the widespread adoption of EAD are considered. A close look at the emerging EAC standard closes the article, providing key element definitions from the EAC Tag Library (Beta version, Feb. 2004), and examples of EAC records–including early implementations such as the University College London's LEADERS project.

Picking Our Text: Archival Description, Authenticity, and the Archivist as Editor

A number of recent archival initiatives have asserted a relationship between archival description and authenticity. This article establishes a preliminary foundation for understanding the nature of that relationship by reviewing the literature relating to archival description and authenticity, comparing the authenticating function of archival description with that of textual criticism, and identifying three lines of research inquiry that present themselves in light of that comparison.

Adoption and diffusion of Encoded Archival Description

AbstractIn this article, findings from a study on the diffusion and adoption of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) within the U.S. archival community are reported. Using E. M. Rogers' (1995) theory of the diffusion of innovations as a theoretical framework, the authors surveyed 399 archives and manuscript repositories that sent participants to EAD workshops from 1993–2002. Their findings indicated that EAD diffusion and adoption are complex phenomena. While the diffusion pattern mirrored that of MAchine‐Readable Cataloging (MARC), overall adoption was slow. Only 42% of the survey respondents utilized EAD in their descriptive programs. Critical factors inhibiting adoption include the small staff size of many repositories, the lack of standardization in archival descriptive practices, a multiplicity of existing archival access tools, insufficient institutional infrastructure, and difficulty in maintaining expertise.

Review of the proposed interoperation of InforM25 and AIM25

PurposeThis paper seeks to document the initial attempt to effect interoperation between a virtual (distributed) union catalogue of bibliographical records and a centralised catalogue of archival collection descriptions. Its specific purpose is to discuss the proposed technical solution and the anticipated usage and usability of the resultant service.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's research subjects were the M25 Consortium's InforM25 union catalogue and the Archives in London and the M25 Area's dual AIM25 databases. The architectural model to effect their interoperation utilised the Z39.50 (information‐retrieval protocol) functionality of the two services plus the latter's separate web application database.FindingsTwo core findings are reported. First, that technical interoperability between the Z39.50 elements of the nascent system was successfully achieved. Second, however, that semantic interoperability was significantly impaired by inconsistencies in the interpretation and processing of search types by the two AIM25 databases.Research limitations/implicationsThis exploratory research project was concluded in 2003. Since then, what might be termed the next‐generation Z39.50 protocol, Search & Retrieve Web Service (SRW), has been developed. The paper would suggest that the interoperation of InforM25 and AIM25 forms a test‐bed application scenario for SRW.Practical implicationsRegardless of which information‐retrieval protocol is used, a model for controlling semantic interoperability will be an essential requirement. It is recommended that this model be derived from the ISO‐registered Bath Profile.Originality/valueThis paper reiterates the central importance of the need to achieve semantic interoperability in distributed search environments, and should therefore be of interest to those concerned with the funding and creation of any such regional, national or international initiatives.

Crosswalking EAD: Collaboration in Archival Description

Different library departments must work together, both formally and informally, in implementing encoded archival description and in repackaging descriptive information about archival collections to other formats, particularly machine-readable cataloging. The authors, one a technical services librarian and the other a special collections archivist, describe their experiences collaborating in these processes at The Ohio State University. Although other institutions may differ in their organizational structure, the authors hope to provide technical guidance, as well as a model of collaboration between archivists and technical services personnel. Careful dialogue and planning are essential to transcend the traditional divide between archival and library descriptive practices and systems.