A few thoughs on context and content

I have been reading with interest the post and comments on Mark Matienzo's blog: http://thesecretmirror.com. He asks 'Must contextual description be bound to records description?'

I tend to agree with his point of view that this is not a good thing. The Archives Hub uses EAD, and our contributors happily add very excellent biographical and administrative history information into their descriptions, via the tag, information that I am sure is very valuable for researchers. But should our descriptions leave out this sort of information and be just descriptions of the collection and no more? Wouldn't it be so much more sensible to then link to contextual information that is stored separately?

Possibly, on the other side of the argument, if archivists created separate biographical/administrative history records, would they still want to contextualise them for specific collection descriptions anyway? It makes perfect sense to have the information separate to the collection description if it is going to be shared, but will archivists want to modify it to make it relevant to particular collections? Is it sensible to link to a comprehensive biographical record for someone when you are describing a very small collection that only refers to a year in their life?

Of course, we don't have the issue with EAD at the moment, in so far as we can't include an EAC-CPF record in an EAD record anyway, because it doesn't allow stuff to be included from other XML schemas (no components from other namespaces can be used in EAD). But I can't help thinking that an attractive model for something like the Archives Hub would be collection descriptions (including sub-fonds, series, items), that can link to whatever contextual information is appropriate, whether that information is stored by us or elsewhere. This brings me back to my current interest - Linked Data. If the Web is truly moving towards the Linked Data model, then maybe EAD should be revised in line with this? By breaking information down into logical components, it can be recombined in more imaginative ways - open and flexible data!

Archival Management Software

Archival Management Software: A Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources. Lisa Spiro, January 2009. The Archives Hub is not in the business of archival management systems, but this report provides a useful perspective on what systems have to offer, and also the current state of cataloguing, albeit essentially in the US. Recommended reading. Here is a summary, highlighting some points of interest. The report starts off on well-trodden ground about the number of hidden archives. As a partial remedy, it encourages providing access to materials through minimal steps (basic descriptions which may not be 'perfect'), rather than providing detailed catalogues of a small percentage of holdings. At the same time it states that collection-level descriptions must be done well, otherwise they may not effectively represent the collection to users. The report refers to taking a stripped-down approach to cataloguing - quite a change from the norm for many archivists. This is an issue we have been thinking about at the Hub, and we have taken the decision to reduce the number of mandatory fields that we require of our contributors. A difficult decision, but we felt that we needed to fit in with the ethos that a minimal description is better than no description, and we should be conscious of the difficulties archives often have in providing comprehensive descriptions with only minimal resources. As an interesting adjunct to the debate about the control archivists have over descriptions (the requirements for expertise), the report cites a project where students are paired with unprocessed collections in their area of interest and trained to catalogue them, resulting in access for users and research topics for the students. Presumably this work is overseen by archivists, but it is still a departure from the idea that cataloguing requires an 'expert'. The important point is to provide electronic access as 'increasingly, materials that are electronically inaccessible are simply not used' (quoting Jones, Hidden Collections, Scholarly Barriers, 2003). I was heartened to read that the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (2008) recommends sharing metadata records and authority records. Of course, this is not really surprising, but still its good to see endorsement for what the Archives Hub and others are currently trying to achieve. The author found that many archives use a wide range of methods to process descriptions, with various tools at various steps in the workflow, resulting in something of a hodgepodge and reducing efficiency. I imagine these practices build up over time in an ad hoc way. It's very difficult to sweep them away and start again from the ground up, although this would be the ideal way forward. The report refers to the difficulties of creating descriptions using standards such as EAD and cites a report by Chris Prom et al: 'Until creating an on-line finding aid and sharing it with users is as easy as using a word processor, the archival profession is unlikely to significantly improve access to the totality of records and papers stored in a repository' (Prom et al, A Unified Platform for Archival Descriptions and Access, 2007). Prom has also claimed that around 82% of archivists (in the US) use word processors to catalogue. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that cataloguing tools need to be simple and familiar. At the Hub, we are very aware of this fact, and are seeking to address it as far as Hub EAD descriptions are concerned by working to significantly enhance our EAD Editor, an easy-to-use form with contextual menus and graphical representations of multi-level catalogues. The report lists a number of features that archivists want to see in archival management software. The first one certainly chimes in with the Hub strategy: Integrated - rather than having to enter data in multiple databases, an archivist could enter the data once and generate multiple outputs. Other features mentioned include easy import and export, and the report goes on to refer to the difficulties of doing this in practice, with one respondent making the observation that it may be better not to be too flexible, sacrificing this for the sake of consistency - inflexibility as a positive! The report goes on to give some sound advice about selecting the software and gives some key factors that distinguish the software systems being targeted in the report. I would say this is well worth reading - it's not really specific to the systems being assessed in the report, so it's very relevant for any institution thinking about the features of archival management systems. There is a substantial section on EAD authoring which lists some well-known XML/text editors and also input forms (the Archives Hub amongst them). It also refers to validation and publishing. It is publishing that really presents challenges - I am frequently asked about this when I give talks about EAD as it is the area that archivists find most difficult - how does an archivist working alone in a small institution publish EAD finding aids? This has become simpler with the newer browsers that can read XML - it is possible to upload the EAD files and link to a stylesheet. But it is still a barrier to those without HTML/CSS skills. The section on archival management systems lists both open-source and commercial options, including Archon, Archivists' Toolkit, CALM and AdLib. The final section is on federated access, and the Hub model is described. As one interviewee summed up: "We just have to federate - there really isn't a reason to stop at the stage of putting things on the Web. The point of EAD was not to put finding aids online, but to share, to get everyone together, to do things across a collection. If we don't make the step forward to sharing, we might as well be using HTML."

We have ways of keeping control!

The Archives Hub has been putting itself about a bit over the past couple of years...by which I mean that we are becoming distributed. We have around 150 contributors, who provide us with their archive descriptions, and through the medium of EAD and our search and retrieval software, Cheshire, we make these available for cross-searching. The role of the Archives Hub is to facilitate dissemination of information and therefore promote use of archives as widely as possible to enhance all kinds of research. But at the same time we have sought to be transparent in what we do and how we do it, and we have always emphasised that the data belongs to the contributors. What we don't want them to feel is that once they pass their descriptions on to us that is pretty much that...it's out of their hands. We like to think that we've avoided this by continuing to maintain personal contact with contributors, providing news and updates, being generally approachable...and sending out mugs and fun Christmas cards! I find the whole issue of control very interesting. There are so many levels on which we can think about it now - the control of archive descriptions, the control of archives (getting into issues of preservation vs. access), the control that can come from understanding technology, and how far archivists have to understand technology in this day and age in order to have control, and also the issue of control with the advent of 'Web 2.0' and user-generated content. What we want to do is facilitate contributors having responsibility for their data, and one way of doing this is to enable them to host their own data and administer it themselves. As well as providing them with the software to do this, they can create their own web interface and give it a look and feel that they are happy with. This means that researchers (and archivists) still have the advantages of the Archives Hub as a central cross-searching facility as well as the means to search just the descriptions of one repository. We will be moving to a new version of our software soon (Cheshire 3) and this will be particularly well suited to this distributed environment. However, that doesn't mean that we will be pressing all of our contributors to set up their own server - we are still more than happy to host their data here at Manchester, and they have the added advantage of a data editor to check their descriptions and provide advice and support (which we are happy to do for the distributed contributors as well). But whether the data is here or held by the contributor, we want to continue to act as a facilitator rather than a controller. I do wonder whether it is useful to talk about control of the data anyway - I think that we are moving towards a scenario where the movement of data will become more fluid, and we will want to provide access in more flexible ways. Maybe 'control' really means the ability to ensure that the archival descriptions are accurate and reliable - which generally relies upon the authority of the archivist - rather than implying that the channels of dissemination must be limited. What we want is one authoritative version of the description with any number of ways to actually get that information to the people out there. Image: from Flickr courtesy of Telstar Logistics

EAD: your super flexible friend

I've just come across the Smithsonian Archives of American Art online collections. This is a wonderful source, with all the archives digitised and available to view. The navigation available on the site is great, with an image viewer allowing the user to scroll through images, enlarge them and navigate through the folders. It seems to me to be a very well designed site, with a clear information architecture enabling the user to drill down to different levels and get a good sense of exactly where they are. I like the way that they have used the mix of text, photographs and drawings. The site is not perfect though - it does fall down on the use of XHTML, which is not valid. I suspect that the Smithsonian have rather more resources available for this sort of project than many of us are lucky enough to get (although the project did receive external funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art). I was particularly interested in this site because it uses EAD, so it is a great example of the way EAD descriptions can be re-purposed. Whilst for many of us, simple EAD descriptions are all that we have the time and resources to create at present, this shows how using EAD means that we retain the flexibility to create more ambitious sites in the future. If you go to the 'finding aid' link you can see the more traditional EAD description. Image from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art website, under fair use (for non-commercial purposes).

Data Creation Guidelines

Here's a dull announcement livened up by another photo of the Woodcraft Folk: the latest version of the Data Creation Guidelines for the Archives Hub is now online. Illustration: Woodcraft Folk, 1920s, photo copyright © the National Co-operative Archive.

Training Day

The Archives Hub is holding a training day for contributors and potential contributors on Tuesday 25 September here at the University of Manchester. The day is free and will run from 10.30 to 16.00 with a free lunch provided. This is a great opportunity for anyone who would like to know more about EAD and about creating descriptions and indexing entries for the Hub. If you would like to attend please email us. Illustration: Woodcraft Folk photo copyright © National Co-operative Archive.

Archives Gateways

In yesterday's keynote at the International Standards for Digital Archives conference Bill Stockting took a retrospective look at the development and methodolgy of the A2A programme led by The National Archives (TNA) in the UK. A2A (Access to Archives) £4,000,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) since its inception in 2000. This money has been awarded to a wide range of content-creation projects in England, creating a database of over 100,000 EAD files, containing over 1,000,000 units of archival description between them. Bill went on to explain that the current phase of A2A (known as Access 4 All) would be the final content creation phase for the programme. This phase ends in March 2008 and Bill explained that the data would be transferred to another TNA system. Options for the future maintenance of the data are currently being investigated. The changing priorities of TNA itself and the main funding agency (HLF) were two of the reasons given by Bill for this change. It has become increasingly difficult for repositories to get funding for simple retroconversion projects from HLF in recent years. Bill also noted that many repositories are now actively converting their paper-based finding aids into electronic format themselves, so there was less of a requirement for a central team to co-ordinate such work. My concern is that it might become more difficult to update existing A2A descriptions and to add new ones as a result of this decision. The information in the database may then become increasingly divergent from the versions of the finding aids that are held in the repositories themselves and that the staff in those archives are continuing to improve and build upon. Stefano Vitali was the next speaker. He demonstrated the use of EAC and EAD in the online guide to the State Archives of Florence. The interface was impressive. One area that bothers me slightly about separating out the authority file information from the EAD is that it might become confusing to novice users. One moment you're looking at a collection description, with its own internal navigation, then if you follow a link to a separate authority file, you find yourself in a different record. This could be confusing for the uninitiated. Perhaps it is better to incorporate elements from both EAD and EAC within one display. Blanca Desantes Fernández showed us the Censo-Guía de Archivos de España e Iberoamérica. This is a top-level guide to institutions holding material relating to Spain and Latin America. An XML DTD for describing archival institutions was developed for this project: Encoded Archival Guide (EAG). Blanca explained that this is now being taken forward by the International Council of Archives as a new archival standard: International Standard for Institutions with Archival Holdings (ISIAH). The final session was a panel discussion about a proposed new European gateway to archives. This was interesting. It seems to be a response from European national archivists to The European Library, which is building a union catalogue of holdings of national libraries. The archive gateway's scope seems unclear at present and there does not appear to have been any attempt at establishing whether there is public demand for such a system. A seven-year timescale was mentioned, but no funding has yet been secured and the scope seems potentially limitless. I don't feel that the European archive world has the building blocks in place for such a project yet (unlike the national libraries). But if the project were to focus on making it possible to create those building blocks, then that would be a good place to start. Something like the Spanish project might be a sensible target for an initial project.

Neuer Post

Blogger knows I'm in Germany - the interface is all in German. Neat. And just a teeny bit creepy. I'm here with Jane at the International Standards for Digital Archives conference. Lots of presentations about EAD, EAC, METS and related standards. I was talking about the Spokes software yesterday (the EAD day). The picture shows the inside of the Umspannwerk Ost restaurant where we had dinner last night. It used to be an electrical substation. The conference venue (the Umweltforum) used to be a church. They're good at recycling here. Today was all about EAC and METS - Daniel Pitti was one of the speakers giving the background to EAC in the morning. Apparently there have been complaints about the complexity of the standard, so Daniel was asking for more details on this problem, as work is about to start on rebuilding it 'from the ground up'. I enjoyed his closing comment which was along the lines of "it doesn't matter what you do in the privacy of your own repository, but if you're going outside, please dress up in a standard" (or a nice hat, of course).

EAD and TEA

Yesterday I was in London helping to run an 'Introduction to EAD' training day on behalf of the Data Standards Group and the London Region of the Society of Archivists. The last exercise I did with the delegates was to look at a randomly-selected set of resources based around EAD finding aids (courtesy of the EAD Implementor Listing maintained by the EAD Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists). One of the issues that came up was to do with labelling: both of parts of archival descriptions and of search options. Some of the sites are moving away from using the standard ISAD(G)/EAD headings for the descriptions, so that 'Scope and Content' becomes 'Content', which we agreed might be more meaningful for users of the services (although possibly confusing when comparing records from different sources). The search options and consequences of following links are sometimes not obvious without going ahead and testing them out, and the results displays were sometimes similarly confusing, even to a room full of archivists. One of the sites we were looking at was that of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. We became distracted by its excellent 'Today in History' feature, which is rather like the Archives Hub's 'Collection of the Month', but with the whole year's supply of featured documents prepared in advance. The text for the last week's worth is available through the Instiute's Today in History RSS feed. Today's document is entitled 'Painkillers for Spirit Wrestlers', but it was the entry for 28th February that really woke everyone up at the end of the day. On the way home I found myself looking at another label, this time on an electricity socket on the train: It made me wonder why the railway company had felt compelled to attach the label. Had commuters been bringing their hairdryers on to the train in the mornings and blow-drying their hair? Or perhaps some entrepreneur had brought an electric kettle on to the train and started selling cups of tea to the other passengers. With a large cup of tea now costing £1.39 from Virgin's on-board shop, perhaps that wouldn't be such a silly idea...

Free XML editor

Many Hub contributors have invested in proprietary XML editing software such as XMetaL or Oxygen, but if you haven't yet done so you might be interested in a free program called XML Copy Editor. It comes in Linux and Windows versions and makes it easy to validate EAD files. It's also easy to associate style sheets such as the Hub's so that you can get an impression of how your file will appear in a browser (which makes it a lot easier to proof-read). One feature I particularly liked was the ability to choose which browser to use for this: this is a failing in XMLSpy, which defaults to Internet Explorer (which then always crashes on my machine). I've never worked out how to change it to use Firefox (or any other browser), but it was easy to do that with XML Copy Editor. Of course you don't get all the functionality of the proprietary systems, but you are prompted as to which tags are valid at any point in the file, and there's a handy special-character insertion menu, so if you don't mind working with EAD tags visible, this looks like a good alternative to the paid-for options. Picked up from Digitizationblog via the ArchivesBlogs aggregator.

EAD has a new schema (nearly)

I have been looking at the beta version of the new EAD schema today. This will eventually replace the DTD that we currently use to validate our EAD files. Usually when I investigate new standards and technologies, the way is fraught with problems, but this was almost indecently easy.....Actually, I should make clear that I mean easy to link to and validate some test documents. When it comes to actually thinking about making all of our Hub data validate to the schema, that may throw up far more issues. It seems that the main changes for us will be to do with the values for date ranges, the use of xlink to create links, and the need to change the repository code values (i'm still a little unclear about how this will actually work). Isn't it nice when something turns out to be far more straightforward than you thought it would be!

Training new archivists

Jane and I had a great day yesterday in Aberystwyth, training the proto-archivists there in using XML and EAD. We've been given a copy of XMetaL software by Blast Radius for use in these sessions which really helps to give the students a feel for encoding descriptions in EAD. The trainee archivists were discussing a joke I'd forgotten about: Where did Noah keep his bees? In the ark-hives

Still in Washington...

Got a chance to go beyond the hotel and meeting rooms today and paid a visit to the National Building Museum, which is housed in an amazing building, once the Pension Bureau (paying pensions to men who fought in the American Civil War). The museum's exhibits used a good mixture of archives and artifacts. There was a hands-on part where you could try to build a brick wall using various different brick bonding patterns. Noticed the sign below on my way round the building, which made me think of EAD.

Opportunity for training in EAD

The Society of Archivists' EAD/Data Exchange Group will be running an Introduction to EAD training day on 25 April 2006. Both Amanda and Jane are part of the Group Committee, and, together with Bill Stockting from TNA, they will be the tutors for this course. For those Hub contributors who want to know more about XML in general, and EAD in particular, this course provides a good general introduction. It also gives delegates the chance to create an EAD record from scratch, using XML editing software. This course is not aimed specifically at Hub contributors, so it will not be about the Hub implementation of EAD, but will look at general principles of using EAD. Whilst many contributors may be happy to use the Hub template to create records, it can be worthwhile to learn more about the prinicples behind EAD, and gain a greater understanding of the syntax and semantics. We are offering this course at a very good price this year (£40 to EAD Group members, £50 to Society members) as we have been able to secure some extra funding to subsidise the course. You can find out more about the course on the Society of Archivits' website or just email Jane if you would like more information. You will need to book with the Society, using the booking form at http://www.archives.org.uk/careerdevelopment.html