94 · Survey Results: Survey Questions and Responses
Shortage of available staff to process
manuscript collections. Currently,
there are no staff members assigned
to assist in the arrangement and
description of manuscript collections.
Student workers and interns
occasionally participate in these
functions, but spend far less time on
this than is actually needed.
Shortage of professional staff with
the expertise and time to migrate
manuscript collections to the Web.
Only one full-time archivist has
been trained to encode finding aids
in EAD and this individual is also
solely responsible for mounting such
collections to the Web. This position
has a number of other responsibilities
that limit the amount of time that can
be spent on such activities.
Since no additional staff is available for
encoding finding aids to migrate to the
Web and money has not been available
for outsourcing finding aid conversion,
staff time devoted to encoding is taken
from staff who would otherwise be
reducing processing backlogs.
Multiple copies of expensive software
must be purchased to enable archivists
to create finding aids directly in
EAD this has only recently become
possible. The size and complexity of
our collections put constraints on the
tools (such as Access databases and
Archivists’ Toolkit) that can be used for
encoding.
The extent of our finding aids awaiting
encoding will require more streamlined
processes for conversion we are still
using tools initially developed more
than ten years ago.
Staff resources. Time.
Staff resources including training for
staff.
Finding an effective way to
communicate between curatorial staff
and technical staff.
Managing the need for predictable,
structured information in the
fundamentally fluid and unpredictable
environment of manuscript collection.
Staff time to process collections. Staff time to migrate legacy paper
finding aids.
Staff to convert legacy records to DACS
and update the information in those
records. Some of these records have
minimal information.
Creation of templates CSS (style
sheets).
Staff to mark up finding aids for the
Web.
Staff to do the work.
Staff: not enough. Time: not enough. Money: not enough.
Staffing. Equipment both the quantity and
necessary upgrades.
Workspace.
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