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
The Archival Mission

• Identify, preserve, make available records and
  papers

From Gregory Hunter, Developing and Maintaining
Practical Archives
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Libraries Archives
Nature Published, discrete, make sense on own, multiple copies Unpublished, grouped with related items, make no sense on own
Creator Many One parent organization
Method of Creation Each created separately Organically produced as part of normal business or life
How Received Selected as items Appraised as groups
How Arranged By subject classification Provenance and original order (structure and function)
How described By item In aggregate (record group, series, collection)
Where described Built into item itself (provided title, author, CIP data), in catalog Prepared by archivist (e.g. supplied title) in finding aids, guides, inventories, databases
How accessed Items circulate No circulation
Based on chart in Hunter, Developing. . . p. 7
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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
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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)

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Levels of Arrangement Examples
Repository University Archives Special Collections
Record Group College of Engineering Champaign County Republican Party
Series Deans Office Correspondence Files Speakers Committee File
File Unit Federal Aviation Administration Barry Goldwater, 1960-70
Item Letter to FAA Director, June 12, 1968 Copy of remarks by Goldwater to CCRP, August 23, 1965
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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

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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

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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
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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)

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Elements of Description

• 26 in ISAD (G) (www.ica.org/biblio/cds/isad_g_2e.p
  df)
• 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

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Questions?

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

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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

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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

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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

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Cataloging Archival Materials
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MARC 21 Sample
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Typical Fields for Cataloging Archival Materials
Personal Name 100
Corporate Name 110
Title 245a,b
Inclusive Dates 245f
Physical Description (volume) 300
Arrangement/Organization 351
Biographical/Historical Note 545
Scope/content note 520
Restrictions on Access 506
Terms of Use 540
Provenance 561
Subject added entry 650s
Personal name added entry 700
Personal name as subject 600
Corporate name as subject 610
Link to finding aid or digital collection 856
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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

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Encoded Archival Description (EAD)

• Data structure standards for descriptions of
  manuscripts or archives--gtfinding aids
• At any level of granularity
• Typically collection level
• sgml and xml versions of DTD
• ltdaogt tag for linking to archival surrogates

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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

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EAD Samples

• Static
• http//web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/ua/1505023/150
  5023f.html
• http//www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwards.ht
  m
• Conversion on server http//www.amphilsoc.org/lib
  rary/mole/e/edwards.xml
• PDF http//www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwar
  ds.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/

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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

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EAD Structure 2

• lteadheadergt (information about EAD File)
• lteadidgt unique id
• ltfiledescgt
• lttitlestmtgt
• ltpublicationstmtgt
• ltnotestmtgt
• ltprofiledescgt
• ltcreationgt
• ltlangusagegt
• ltrevisiondescgt
• ltfrontmattergt (deprecated element, repeats info
  for display)
• ltarchdescgt (information about materials being
  described)

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Common Top-Level ltarchdescgt Elements
ltdidgt (descriptive id) ltoriginationgt
ltunitititlegt ltunitdategt ltphysdescgt
ltabstractgt ltrepositorygt
ltunitidgt ltbioghistgt ltscopecontentgt ltarrangementgt lt
controlaccessgt ltaccessrestrictgt
Other elements include ltaccrualsgt, ltacqinfogt,
ltaltformatavailgt, ltappraisalgt, ltcustodhistgt,
ltprefercitegt, ltprocessinfogt, ltuserestrictgt,
ltrelatedencodinggt, ltseparatedmaterialgt,
ltotherfindaidgt, ltbibliographygt, ltoddgt Linking
elements some based on XLink spec, suite of
linking elements includes ltarchrefgt ,ltextrefgt,
ltdaogrpgt All of above elements are repeatable
for components of the collection, at any level in
the ltdscgt (description of subordinate components)
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Description of Subordinate Components

• nested components (i.e. ltcgt unnumbered or
  ltc01gt, ltc02gt, etc. numbered) represent
  intellectual structure of materials being
  described
• ltcontainergt 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)

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A raw EAD File

• http//web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/xml/2620016.xm
  l

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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

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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

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XML Transformations
XSL PARSER
HTML1
XSLT1
XSLT2
HTML2
XML
HTML3
XSLT3
HTML4
XSLT4
PDF
XSL-FO
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Typical XSL file
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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

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Break for Questions

• Next Digital Archives Standards and Tools

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Digital Libraries or Archives?
Libraries Archives
Nature Published items, each item discrete, make sense on own, multiple copies Unpublished, grouped with related items, make no sense on own
Creator Many different One parent organization
Method of Creation Each created separately Organically produced as part of normal business or life
How Received Selected as items Appraised as groups
How Arranged By subject classification Provenance and original order (structure and function)
How described By item In aggregate (record group, series, collection)
Where described Built into item itself (provided title, author, CIP data), in catalog Prepared by archivist (e.g. supplied title) in finding aids, guides, inventories, databases
How accessed Items circulate No circulation
42
The on a horse problem

• Best systems mix archival and library approaches
• Complete item description AND
• Full context AND
• Link to complete collection (including
  description of off line items)

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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/b
  ot.html

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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

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Archivists and Metadata

• Structured data about an information resource
• Metadata by itself doesnt do anything.
• Metadata schemas provide buckets for
  information about resources.
• Metadata needs to be interpreted by a system or
  user.
• Metadata provides context to help machines (and
  more importantly people) interpret content
• People usually talk about applying metadata to
  digital materials, but. . . . . .

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These are metadata fields
This is Metadata
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same thing electronically
Metadata Fields
The metadata itself
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Now as xml metadata
Descriptive and administrative
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This is Not Metadata
This is!
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Metadata is about context and relationships

• This is metadata, but. . .
• Incomplete
• Embedded in object
• Not self- explaining

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• More complete
• Not embedded
• Relational
• Not self-explaining

53

• Metadata and
• Code and
• human user beginning to do something with
  metadata
• But. . .
• Not self-explaining
• Cant be exchanged

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now as xml metadata

• Non-embedded
• Self-explaining
• But relationships lost

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Dublin Core

• Developed in 1995 for authors to describe own web
  resources
• Very simple, only 15 broad categories in the
  simple version
• Advantages commonly held set of elements is easy
  to understand, built into many current tools
• Disadvantages loss of specificity

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The 15 elements

• Content
• Coverage
• Description
• Title
• Type
• Relation
• Source
• Subject
• Audience

• Intellectual Prop
• Contributor
• Creator
• Publisher
• Rights
• Instantiation
• Date
• Format
• Identifier
• Language

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Dublin Core Resources

• http//dublincore.org/
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot/

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Text Encoding Initiative

• Encode any text with structural markup, deep
  semantic markup, or any combination of the two
• Section for metadata in ltteiHeadergt
• http//www.tei-c.org/
• Typically need xml editor to create, software
  such as DLXS to display
• http//media.library.uiuc.edu/projects/bot/xml/ind
  ex.htm

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OAIS Reference Model

• Based on Archival Principles
• Three parties involved with digital information
• Producers SIP Submission Information Packet
• Managers AIP Archival Information Packet
• Consumers (Users) DIP Dissemination Information
  Packet
• http//www.library.cornell.edu/iris/tutorial/dpm/f
  oundation/oais/index.html

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Simple OAIS Model
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METS

• Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard
• Standard for encoding descriptive,
  administrative, and structural metadata regarding
  objects within a digital library
• Outgrowth of Making of American II project
• Provides metadata for compound text and
  image-based works
• Need purpose-built software to display and
  navigate.

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METS Why bother?

• Based on the OAIS Reference Model. It Includes
  support for
• Submission Information Packet
• Archival Information Packet
• Dissemination Information Packet
• Not only for transfer and archival management,
  but for giving access to, navigating an object
• It plays well with other systems (EAD, MARC,
  TEI, VRA etc)
• Software will be coming (support in Archivist
  Toolkit, NDIIPP projects)
• BUT. . . . It is currently very complex.

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OAI-PMH

• Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata
  Harvesting
• Not cross-database searching
• metadata harvesting
• Data Providers (expose collections in a common
  syntax)
• Service Providers (use metadata harvested via the
  OAI-PMH as a basis for building value-added
  services)

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OAI Example

• OAIster http//oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/

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Tools for Digital Library/Archive Projects

• CONTENTdm http//www.dimema.com/
• Very good, support for dublin core, OAI
• Con expensive
• Recommendation Skip it
• Greenstone http//www.greenstone.org/cgi-bin/libra
  ry
• Pros Free, (relatively) easy to configure, low
  hardware requirements, can run on internet or
  publish to CD, supported by UNESCO, targeted at
  developing nations
• Con tends to be item-centric, difficult to
  aggregate materials
• Recommendation Use it, but as part of large
  descriptive system

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Thanks!!!!

• This powerpoint online at
• http//web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/workpap