EAD in A2A

Bill Stockting, Senior Editor A2A and EAD Working Group: Central Archives of Historical Records,

Warsaw, 26 April 2003

Introduction

We will look at:

• Brief introduction to A2A• Application of EAD throughout the A2A

process• Issues in using EAD and the way A2A

has dealt with them• Demonstration of EAD in action

UK National Archives Network

A2A is one of the central stands of the National Archives Network:

The goal [is] that a researcher anywhere in the world who has access to the Internet should be able to contact a common gateway, submit a single enquiry and receive a single integrated response, listing the relevant source materials housed in all UK archive repositories. (Archives On-line: NCA, 1998)

National Archives Network

• National Archive Network strands:– National: National Archives (PROCAT and NRA);

British Library (MOLCAT); National Archives of Scotland (NAS e-Cat)

– Local: SCAN; Archive Network Wales; Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (e-CATNI); A2A

– Higher Education: Archives Hub; AIM25; NAHSTE; GASHE

• Funding: National Government and Lottery organisations (e.g. Heritage Lottery Fund - HLF)

A2A Background

A2A Programme is made up of:

• Steering Group: representatives of partners and archive community

• A2A Central Team

• Contributors and projects

A2A Background

What does the A2A Central Team do?

• Retroconversion of paper catalogues• New Cataloguing• Digitised images of archives themselves• A2A database for searching data on the

Internet: http://www.a2a.pro.gov.uk/• Return of data to contributors

A2A Background

• A2A started in April 2002; now in second phase to end March 2004

• Impressive figures for A2A database– Over 300 separate contributors– 500,000+ catalogue pages on the web– 50,000+ collections on the web– Over 4 million files and items described– 900,000+ searches made– Nearly 2 million catalogues viewed

A2A Data

A2A made up of 3 types of data and related standards:

Catalogue data – ISAD(G)Authority controlled index data –

ISAAR(CPF) and NCA rules; UNESCO Thesaurus

Metadata – Dublin Core

EAD Background

Why EAD?

• EAD is the data structure format for archival finding aids

• National Archives experience with EAD• Legacy data too inconsistent for a relational

database• EAD is non- proprietary: it is open and free to

use

EAD Background

Why EAD?

• EAD is standards based– Technically: SGML DTD; XML; e-GIF– Editorially: Accepts data in our standards

• EAD data safe for the future

EAD and ISAD(G)

ISAD(G) states that to be a conformant archival description a finding aid must:

• Be hierarchical: That is it must be made up of a number of levels, and must follow the four rules of multi-level description

• Have certain data elements

EAD is specifically designed to allow the representation of ISAD(G) finding aids

EAD and Hierarchy

ISAD(G) levels:• Fonds

• Sub-fonds• Series• Sub-series• File• Item

• EAD levels:• <archdesc level

=“fonds”>• <dsc><c01> or <c>• <c02> or <c>• <c03> or <c>• <c04> or <c> • <c05> or <c>

ISAD(G) to EADISAD(G) (v.2)• 3.1.4 Level of description*

• 3.1.1 Reference code(s) *

• 3.1.2 Title*• 3.1.3 Dates of creation * • 3.1.5 Extent of the unit * • 3.2.1 Name of creator *

• 3.2.2 Administrative/Biographical history

• 3.2.3 Custodial history• 3.2.4 Immediate source of acquisition• 3.3.1 Scope and content• 3.3.2 Appraisal, destruction and

scheduling

* = elements ‘essential for data exchange’

EAD 2002<archdesc> and <c> level attribute<did>• <unitid> countrycode and repositorycode

attributes• <unittitle>• <unitdate>• <physdesc>, <extent>• <origination><corpname> or <persname> or

<famname> </did>• <bioghist>

• <custodhist>• <acqinfo>• <scopecontent>• <appraisal>

ISAD(G) to EAD

• 3.3.3 Accruals • 3.3.4 System of arrangement• 3.4.1 Access conditions• 3.4.2 Copyright/Reproduction• 3.4.3 Language of material• 3.4.4 Physical characteristics• 3.4.5 Finding aids• 3.5.1 Location of originals• 3.5.2 Existence of copies• 3.5.3 Related units of description

• 3.5.4 Publication note• 3.6.1 Note

• <accruals>• <arrangement>• <accessrestrict>• <userestrict>• < langmaterial>• <phystech>• <otherfindaid>• <originalsloc>• <altformavail>• <relatedmaterial> and

<separatedmaterial>• <bibliography>• <odd>

Authority Controlled Indexing<controlaccess>

<name>

<corpname>*

<persname>*

<famname>*

<geogname>*

<occupation>

<function>

<genreform>

<subject>*

Controlled access headings

Names (general)

Corporate body name

Personal name

Family name

Place name

Occupations

Functions (administrative)

Genre and Form

Subject

* = tags used in A2A

Metadata – EAD Header

<eadheader>*

<eadid>*

<filedesc>*

<titlestmt>

<publicationstmt>

<profiledesc>

<revisiondesc>

Finding aid metadata

Identification

Publication

Creation

Revision

* = EAD mandatory tags

A2A Process

The steps in the process are:

• Data creation and standardisation

• Quality assurance and editing

• Searching

• Presentation

• Data Exchange

Data Creation

• EAD allows the electronic capture and standardisation of data originally in paper form

• Paper catalogues ‘marked up’ to show structure and elements - mark-up example

• Metadata and indexing captured on a form – index page example

• Keyers take this data and put it into the A2A EAD template - demonstration

Editorial and Storage

When the EAD files are returned we need to QA and edit. Options for editing are:

• word processing and parsing• SGML/XML editor• database exports

A2A uses the middle option

Searching

A2A database not a traditional relational database but and web enabled XML document manager:

• SGML EAD file converted to XML EAD• XML EAD files imported into system• XML index files created customised to

particular EAD elements• Online Searching provided for users:

– Free text across descriptive elements– Specific searches across particular metadata, date

and index elements

Presentation

EAD presentation a major issue:

• Internet browsers do not display SGML• Internet browsers now displaying XML but not as

we would wish• XML allows the use of XSL to give style and

transform to HTML – EAD Cookbook allows ‘Do it Yourself’ demonstration of this: Cookbook Sylesheet

• A2A uses XML to give a number of different views of the data

Data Exchange

• Final step is the return of data to contributors

• Many have ISAD(G) compliant database systems

• These automatically import EAD files

• EAD can then be used as an export format in the future