1. Multiple approaches to archival description
Jinfang Niu
University of South Florida
SAA 2017, Portland, ORegon

2. EAD 3 Great for converting analog finding aids into online format
Today, no longer in the conversion stage, need to adapt archival description to current technologies
Changes in EAD 3 is not significant enough
Creating new elements
Deprecate existing elements
Replace some elements
Support for multilingual description, etc.
The EAD Technical subcommittee acknowledges this
The transition from mixed presentation and data to full data is not complete.
One big reason is the resistance from the existing users of EAD: dramatic change causes information loss during migration.

3. Future of EAD
Some countries do not use EAD. Even NARA does not use EAD.
Without significant changes, sooner or later it will stop being used
To stay relevant, it needs to be completely remodeled
The conceptual model created by the ICA Expert Group on Archival Description could be a foundation.
It identifies the core descriptive entities, properties of these entities, and relations among them.
Utilize linked data technology

4. Other encoding methods
METS and OAI-ORE
Represent hierarchical structure
Use external metadata vocabularies to describe the resources
DC, FOAF, etc.
Generic, can be used for any kinds of digital resources
Widely used
ArchivesSpace and Dspace exports structure and metadata of archival collections in METS format.
Both Europeana and DPLA are based on OAI-ORE
Facilitate integrated access to LAM resources

5. OAI-ORE is a linked data-based standard
Linked data makes archival descriptions more granular
An archival description becomes a RDF graph, and each node and edge within this graph is individually discoverable.
In addition to supporting the discovery of records, linked data based on archival description potentially can support the search for information about any entities within archival descriptions and provide direct answers to queries.
EAD based finding aids only support the search for the top unit of description

6. Separate and linked metadata records
Many national archive use this approach, usually based on relational databases
Each component has its own metadata record
Metadata records for components are linked to form a hierarchy
Each component is individually discoverable
More granular than the traditional finding aid, and makes each component in a record aggregate individually discoverable.

7. Website style finding aids
Provide more advanced features than what EAD can offer
navigation structures, drop-down menus, advanced search functionalities, slideshows, animations, audio, and video, automatically turn pages for multipage documents, track download statistics, etc.
Use general terms instead of technical archival terms so that they are easier to understand for novice users.
Example
finding aid for the John Peabody Harrington Collection maintained by the National Anthropological Archives (
“About the Collection” in place of “Scope and Content”
“About J. P. Harrington” in place of “Biography or history”.
Similar to a general guide rather than a specialized finding aid, user friendly
Not sure about its portability

8. Thanks for your attention!