Metadata Standards for Archival Control: An Introduction to EAD and EAC

This article provides a concise guide to the structure and use of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and Encoded Archival Context (EAC) metadata standards. After a brief outline of archival description, the finding aid, and the objectives behind EAD, the structure of EAD is examined in detail. D...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cataloging & classification quarterly 2005-01, Vol.40 (3-4), p.183-212
Main Author: Thurman, Alexander C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archival description
authority control
collection
Computerized bibliographic control
Computerized cataloguing
Digital archives
EAC
EAD
fonds
Metadata
provenance
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Summary:This article provides a concise guide to the structure and use of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and Encoded Archival Context (EAC) metadata standards. After a brief outline of archival description, the finding aid, and the objectives behind EAD, the structure of EAD is examined in detail. Discussion of all of the important elements in the EAD document-type definition (DTD) will be supplemented with examples of actual finding aids and their encoding, with attention to the common necessity of "reengineering" existing finding aids. The current status of EAD implementation and some issues affecting the widespread adoption of EAD are considered. A close look at the emerging EAC standard closes the article, providing key element definitions from the EAC Tag Library (Beta version, Feb. 2004), and examples of EAC records-including early implementations such as the University College London's LEADERS project.
ISSN:0163-9374
1544-4554
DOI:10.1300/J104v40n03_09