Archives, Digital Archives and Encoded Archival Description

1. Archives, Digital Archives and Encoded Archival Description Chris Prom Assistant University Archivist University of Illinois Mortenson Visiting Scholars Tech Training April 19, 2006

2. Intro • Overview of Archives, Arrangement and Description • Review Standards and Tools related to Archival Description • Review Standards and Tools for providing access to digital archival materials • Lots of interaction

3. Archives Background • Archives: Organized non-current “records”; generated by institutions • Manuscripts: non-current “papers”; generated by individuals or families • Preserved because of ‘enduring’ value • Not necessarily ‘permanent value’ • Both generally referred to as “collections”

4. Identify, preserve, make available records and papers The Archival Mission From Gregory Hunter, Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives

5. Based on chart in Hunter, Developing. . . p. 7

6. Archival Appraisal 101 • Process of determining ‘value’ • Done over aggregates not items • Primary: operational, legal, fiscal, administrative • Secondary: Historical or ‘archival’ value • Types of archival value • Evidential: documents organization and functioning of organization • Informational: sheds light on people, events, things aside from organization Credit: Hunter, p. 51

7. Archival Arrangement 101 • Provenance • Records from one creator must not be intermingled with those from another • NOT by subject • Original order • Maintain records in order placed by creator • Five “levels” of arrangement • Repository • Record group/subgroup (organizationally related group) • Record series (set of files or documents maintained as a unit) • File (folder, binder, packs for convenient use) • Item (one document, letter, etc)

8. Levels of Arrangement: Examples

9. Arrangement of “Papers” • The mixed repository model • Term “series” in papers often refers to internal divisions in a collection. • Thurgood Marshall Papers: • “The collection is arranged in five series: • United States Court of Appeals File, 1957-1965, n.d. • United States Solicitor General File, 1965-1967, n.d. • Supreme Court File, 1967-1991, n.d. • Miscellany, 1949-1963 • Oversize, 1967, 1991”

10. Description of Archives • Establish administrative control over archival materials • Locate collections • Identify their source, creators (chain of custody) • Outline contents • Establish intellectual control • General nature of repository • General contents of collection • Detailed information on specific collections • Summarize information across several collections • Important for both authentication and access • Internal vs. Public finding aids

11. Principles of Description* • “Multilevel Description” • Proceed from general to specific • Provide information relevent to the level of description • Link each level of description to next higher unit of description • Do not repeat information, provide it only at highest appropriate level * Summarized from ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description

12. Finding Aid • Basic Access Tool is the “Finding Aid” also known as ‘inventory’ or ‘register’. • Prefatory material • Introduction • Biographical sketch/agency history • Scope and content note • Series description (organization) • Container Listing • Index (less used now with electronic finding aids)

13. Elements of Description • 26 in ISAD (G) (www.ica.org/biblio/cds/isad_g_2e.pdf) • Identity • Reference code, title, dates, level of description • Context • Name of creator, biographical or admin history, source of materials • Content/Structure • Scope/content, appraisal information, arrangement • Conditions of Access/Use • Allied Materials (copies, originals, related) • Notes • Description Control (author of description, revisions)

14. Finding Aid Examples • Reston Papers and Third Armored Division Assn (bring along) • American Crystal Sugar Co. • Thurgood Marshall Papers

15. Questions? • Next: • Overview of standards and tools for description of paper and electronic materials, and tools for access to electronic collections.

16. Establishing a good descriptive system • Takes planning, awareness of resources • Deciding on ‘platform’ or computers should be LAST step • Better to describe all materials at high level than put all effort into one collection • Beware tendency to do lower levels of description before higher levels • Inventory MUST be the key • Use a content standard

17. Describing Archives: A Content Standard • Provides rules/advice about the quality and structure of informational content • 8 principles • What to put in the 26 elements recommended by ISAD (G) • Rules for describing creators and forms of names • Complement to AACR2 • Provides mapping to appropriate data structure standards

18. MARC21 • Advantages: Can use regular library software, provides integrated access with non-archival materials • Disadvantages: Can undermine provenance, relationship to other materials may be lost • Recommendation: USE MARC Cataloging as first step in PUBLIC finding aids

19. Cataloging Archival Materials

20. MARC 21 Sample

21. Typical Fields for Cataloging Archival Materials

22. Word-Processed Finding Aids • Advantages: Easy to create, maintain • Disadvantages: Not in standard format, cannot exchange with others, lack of coded fields • Recommendation: Very useful for most institutions. Can be published to Internet via PDF

23. Encoded Archival Description (EAD) • Data structure standards for descriptions of manuscripts or archives-->finding aids • At any level of granularity • Typically collection level • sgml and xml versions of DTD • <dao> tag for linking to archival surrogates

24. EAD • Advantages: Best interoperability and data exchange, easier to implement with others (consortia) • Disadvantages: Tool development still weak, steep learning curve. • Recommendation: If you have good technical skills, and a basic archival program is in place, and resources are available, implement it

25. EAD Samples • Static: • http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/ua/1505023/1505023f.html • http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwards.htm • Conversion on server: http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwards.xml • PDF: http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwards.pdf • In digital library software: • http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/EAD/index.html • http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ • Other implementations • Cheshire: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/

26. EAD Structure 1 • XML: perfect way to implement principles of ‘multi-level description • many elements optional • most repeatable at any level, nesting can vary • Normalization possible, but not common for most finding aids

27. EAD Structure 2 • <eadheader> (information about EAD File) • <eadid> unique id • <filedesc> <titlestmt> <publicationstmt> <notestmt> • <profiledesc> <creation> <langusage> • <revisiondesc> • <frontmatter> (deprecated element, repeats info for display) • <archdesc> (information about materials being described)

28. Common Top-Level <archdesc> Elements <did> (descriptive id) <origination> <unitititle> <unitdate> <physdesc> <abstract> <repository> <unitid> <bioghist> <scopecontent> <arrangement> <controlaccess> <accessrestrict> Other elements include<accruals>, <acqinfo>, <altformatavail>, <appraisal>, <custodhist>, <prefercite>, <processinfo>, <userestrict>, <relatedencoding>, <separatedmaterial>, <otherfindaid>, <bibliography>, <odd> Linking elements:some based on XLink spec, suite of linking elements includes <archref> ,<extref>, <daogrp> All of above elements are repeatable for components of the collection, at any level in the <dsc> (description of subordinate components)

29. Description of Subordinate Components • nested components (i.e. <c> [unnumbered] or <c01>, <c02>, etc. [numbered]) represent intellectual structure of materials being described • <container> elements (within each level) represent physical arrangement • Maximum depth of 12 levels (not a good idea to use all of them) • All elements available in archdesc top level also available in any component (typically not used)

30. A “raw” EAD File • http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/xml/2620016.xml

31. EAD Tools: Creation • Current options • Text editors (cheap, no built in validation, transformation or unicode support) • Notetab • Word Processors • XML editors (graphical view, built in validation, transformation, unicode support, FOP; tend to be buggy) • XML Spy • oXygen • XMetal (not recommended) • EAD Cookbook highly recommended, templates for Notetab, oXygen

34. EAD Tools: Display • Most common to transform to HTML • Static via xsl stylesheet on command line or in authoring software, then upload files to server • Client-side via link to css or xsl (dicey) • Server side transform engine (saxon, msxml, xalan, etc) via servlets • Dynamic (searchable) • dlxs findaid class

35. XML Transformations XSL PARSER XSLT1 HTML1 XSLT2 HTML2 XML XSLT3 HTML3 XSLT4 HTML4 XSL-FO PDF

36. Typical XSL file

37. Collection Management Tools • Advantages: Software tailored for Archives, easy data entry • Disadvantages: Few options currently exist. May be difficult to ‘migrate’ forward at a future point. Also not automatically online

38. “CMT” Examples • Past Perfect http://www.museumsoftware.com/ • Archivist Toolkit http://www.archiviststoolkit.org/ • UIUC “Archival Information System”

39. AIS Demo • www.chrisprom.com/ais/admin • Login: guest • Password: guest

40. Break for Questions • Next: Digital Archives Standards and Tools

41. Digital Libraries or Archives?

42. Best systems mix archival and library approaches Complete item description AND Full context AND Link to complete collection (including description of off line items) The “on a horse” problem

43. Sample of Digital Library/Archive Projects • http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html • http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ • http://www.ohiomemory.org/index.html • http://www.library.yale.edu/mssa/ • http://www.marquette.edu/library/MUDC/ • http://www.library.uiuc.edu/archives/coll/dl/bot/bot.html

44. Digital Library/Archive Standards • Background on Metadata • For images: Dublin Core • For texts: TEI • For information exchange: METS, OAI • For Digital Preservation: OAIS Reference Model

45. Archivists and Metadata • Structured data about an information resource • Metadata by itself doesn’t “do” anything. • Metadata schemas provide “buckets” for information about resources. • Metadata needs to be interpreted by a system or user. • Metadata provides contextto help machines (and more importantly people) interpret content • People usually talk about applying metadata to digital materials, but. . . . . .

47. These are metadata fields This is Metadata

48. same thing electronically Metadata Fields The metadata itself

49. Now as xml “metadata” Descriptive and administrative

50. This is Not Metadata This is!