SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts &Archives · 77
Marking finding aids up in EAD and making finding aids available online has impressed on us the need for improved
descriptive practices. It has led directly to our implementation of DACS. Finding aids are marked up in EAD as part of the
creation of descriptions.
Marking up finding aids in EAD does not impact how we process. (5 responses)
Marking up finding aids in EAD is only used in the most exceptional cases, and normally only when we either have
special funding or when we are going to be digitizing material that needs to be linked to the finding aid. Otherwise,
EAD is just short of a criminal waste of time.
Nearly all of our complete finding aids have been marked up in EAD (these generally include standard front matter plus
a container list). Our “small” collections, which generally are described only by a MARC record (but often an item-level
one) have not been marked up in EAD, and are accessible only through our library catalog.
No impact yet we are in the process of trying to routinize EAD encoding through the use of Archivists’ Toolkit and a site
created by the computing department of the library.
Not much because it’s just a different format for our finding aids. Doesn’t really affect our processing decisions all that
much.
Now collect/write more descriptive information and make it available to researcher—conditions of use, conditions of
access most finding aids are built gradually as information is gathered about unprocessed collections, or parts of a
collection are processed.
Online access with minimal finding aids still provides higher level of access than paper-based finding aids of more detail.
Internal and national uniformity of description provides greater collocation of archival materials with related materials
locally and globally.
Our goal is to work toward federated searching within/across institutions using common and “controlled” language. As
this is still in our future we expect it to assist us in finding commonalities across similar collections.
Our highest current priority is to prepare core records for previously undescribed resources, though we are preparing
EAD-encoded finding aids, if to a lesser extent. EAD-encoded finding aids are somewhat labor intensive and our effort
is to prepare core records and display them for searching in a Special Collections database.
Our pre-EAD finding aids were pretty close to post-EAD, so we didn’t have to make many changes directly related to
EAD encoding. Conceptually, we make EAD encoding reflect our decisions rather than decide based on EAD encoding.
We haven’t had any real problems with this seems always to be a way.
Part of the processing workflow.
Pilot project encoding Special Collections finding aids using OhioLink EAD template running 2008–2011 impact
assessed upon completion.
Producing an EAD finding aid for the Web has long been one of the primary goals of our processing operation. EAD has
been integrated for so long into our processing operations that there is no one on our staff anymore who can describe
what processing was like before EAD.
Providing online access to manuscript and archival collections has not affected decisions about processing, including
decisions about the level of processing.
Required training for personnel before can this can be put into action.
Soon to be implemented here.
Marking finding aids up in EAD and making finding aids available online has impressed on us the need for improved
descriptive practices. It has led directly to our implementation of DACS. Finding aids are marked up in EAD as part of the
creation of descriptions.
Marking up finding aids in EAD does not impact how we process. (5 responses)
Marking up finding aids in EAD is only used in the most exceptional cases, and normally only when we either have
special funding or when we are going to be digitizing material that needs to be linked to the finding aid. Otherwise,
EAD is just short of a criminal waste of time.
Nearly all of our complete finding aids have been marked up in EAD (these generally include standard front matter plus
a container list). Our “small” collections, which generally are described only by a MARC record (but often an item-level
one) have not been marked up in EAD, and are accessible only through our library catalog.
No impact yet we are in the process of trying to routinize EAD encoding through the use of Archivists’ Toolkit and a site
created by the computing department of the library.
Not much because it’s just a different format for our finding aids. Doesn’t really affect our processing decisions all that
much.
Now collect/write more descriptive information and make it available to researcher—conditions of use, conditions of
access most finding aids are built gradually as information is gathered about unprocessed collections, or parts of a
collection are processed.
Online access with minimal finding aids still provides higher level of access than paper-based finding aids of more detail.
Internal and national uniformity of description provides greater collocation of archival materials with related materials
locally and globally.
Our goal is to work toward federated searching within/across institutions using common and “controlled” language. As
this is still in our future we expect it to assist us in finding commonalities across similar collections.
Our highest current priority is to prepare core records for previously undescribed resources, though we are preparing
EAD-encoded finding aids, if to a lesser extent. EAD-encoded finding aids are somewhat labor intensive and our effort
is to prepare core records and display them for searching in a Special Collections database.
Our pre-EAD finding aids were pretty close to post-EAD, so we didn’t have to make many changes directly related to
EAD encoding. Conceptually, we make EAD encoding reflect our decisions rather than decide based on EAD encoding.
We haven’t had any real problems with this seems always to be a way.
Part of the processing workflow.
Pilot project encoding Special Collections finding aids using OhioLink EAD template running 2008–2011 impact
assessed upon completion.
Producing an EAD finding aid for the Web has long been one of the primary goals of our processing operation. EAD has
been integrated for so long into our processing operations that there is no one on our staff anymore who can describe
what processing was like before EAD.
Providing online access to manuscript and archival collections has not affected decisions about processing, including
decisions about the level of processing.
Required training for personnel before can this can be put into action.
Soon to be implemented here.
