Archives, Digital Archives and Encoded Archival Description

Chris PromAssistant University Archivist

University of IllinoisMortenson Visiting Scholars Tech Training

April 19, 2006

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

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”

The Archival Mission• Identify, preserve, make available records and papers

From Gregory Hunter, Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives

Libraries ArchivesNature Published, discrete, make

sense on own, multiple copiesUnpublished, 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

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

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)

Levels of Arrangement: Examples

Repository University Archives Special Collections

Record Group College of Engineering Champaign County Republican Party

Series Dean’s Office Correspondence Files

Speaker’s 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

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”

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

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

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)

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)

Finding Aid Examples

• Reston Papers and Third Armored Division Assn (bring along)

• American Crystal Sugar Co.

• Thurgood Marshall Papers

Questions?

• Next:– Overview of standards and tools for

description of paper and electronic materials, and tools for access to electronic collections.

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

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

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

Cataloging Archival Materials

MARC 21 Sample

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

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

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

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

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/

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

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)

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)

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)

A “raw” EAD File

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

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

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

XML Transformations

XML

XSLT2

HTML1

HTML2

HTML3

HTML4

PDF

XSLT3

XSLT4

XSL-FO

XSLT1

XSL PARSER

Typical XSL file

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

“CMT” Examples

• Past Perfect http://www.museumsoftware.com/

• Archivist Toolkit http://www.archiviststoolkit.org/

• UIUC “Archival Information System”

AIS Demo

• www.chrisprom.com/ais/admin

• Login: guest

• Password: guest

Break for Questions

• Next: Digital Archives Standards and Tools

Libraries ArchivesNature 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

Digital Libraries or Archives?

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)

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

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

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 context to help machines (and more importantly people) interpret content

• People usually talk about applying metadata to digital materials, but. . . . . .

This is Metadata

These are metadata

fields

same thing electronically

Metadata Fields

The metadata itself

Now as xml “metadata”

Descriptive and

administrative

This is Not Metadata

This is!

Metadata is about context and relationships

This is metadata, but. . .

Incomplete

Embedded in object

Not self- explaining

More complete Not embedded Relational Not self-explaining

Metadata and Code and human user

beginning to do something with metadata

But. . . Not self-explainingCan’t be exchanged

Non-embedded Self-explaining But relationships lost

now as xml metadata

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

The 15 elements:

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

• Intellectual Prop– Contributor– Creator– Publisher– Rights

• Instantiation– Date– Format– Identifier– Language

Dublin Core Resources

• http://dublincore.org/

• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot/

Text Encoding Initiative

• Encode any text with structural markup, deep semantic markup, or any combination of the two

• Section for metadata in <teiHeader>

• 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/index.htm

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/foundation/oais/

index.html

“Simple” OAIS Model

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.

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.

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)

OAI Example

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

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/library

– 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

Thanks!!!!

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