adapting archives to emu. corporate records excavation records personal papers byzantine research...
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Adapting Archives to EMu
British School at Athens
Corporate RecordsExcavation RecordsPersonal PapersByzantine Research Fund ArchiveArt CollectionExhibitions
BSA Archive Holdings
The Byzantine Research Fund Archive was one of the Access databases migrated into EMu as part of our pilot project
BRF Catalogued on an item level but lacked upper tier structure in the archival arrangement
Hierarchy was created under the Archives tab so we could easily view and manage the archival arrangement structure
Migrated into EMu
EMu Archive Tab with hierarchies
Noel-Baker Personal Papers
New Data into EMuThe Photo Archive Collection
The Photographic Albums are currently being catalogued in EMu
Arranged at Item Level DescriptionDigital images of pages and individual items
Photo Archive Collection
The family papers of the Noel-Bakers were recently acquired and are currently being catalogued
The collection is arranged in Series and is being described down to Item Level
It is the first collection we have directly entered into EMu
Noel-Baker Personal Papers
The key structural fields of an archival description proscribed by ISAD (G) are:Identity Statement areaContext AreaContent and structure areaNotes areaDescription control area
Which are broken down over three EMu tabs:• ISAD (G) Identity• Content• Allied Materials
Archive Cataloguing in EMu
ISAD (G) Identity
Content
Allied Materials
Gives digital dimension Allows for multiple access pointsFramework for cataloguing standardsHierarchies in Archive Tab and Relationship Tab
allow easy access to view structure as its being created
Links to other commonalities of DepartmentsAllows flexibility for collections out of
standardized Archive remit, in our case the Art Collection and Exhibition, to be catalogued under that department.
Advantages
Work flow procedures difficult to establishISAD (G) has specifically numbered fields which
should be noted in the tabs or in the help windows; e.g. Reference code is 3.1.1, Title is 3.1.2, etc.
Disadvantages
• Web interface does not display collection appropriately
For the BRF Archive we
selected fields that could
be searched and
presented through the
public interface but the
way they are displayed is
not clear.
For example, the
summary data displayed
above the image is a
mass of information that
would be confusing to a
researcher and only
duplicates certain fields
shown below; also, for a
field, such as ‘Creator’ the
distinction between
multiple names is also not
clear
As with the ISAD (G) tabs the work flow of what will be exported for a EAD framework is not clear.
An archival finding aid to be appropriately displayed through EAD should have interlinked pages in the web interface showing the hierarchy.
Export of EAD for web interface
Example of user friendly tiered approach of web interface for archive collections
1. Collection List
2. ISDAD(G) Identity Statement
3. Brief List of Series
4. Item Level Display
ConclusionsA more clearly laid out workflow with exact
correspondence to ISAD (G) and EAD terminology will consolidate the information structure and will contribute significantly to the organization of client archives
The restructuring of the web interface to properly display collections will open up the access points to external users and allow linking into other archives leading to other institutional alliances.