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Barriers to Using EAD

Encoded Archival Description (EAD) is an encoding standard for markup and display of archival finding aids. Available since 1998, EAD has enjoyed international adoption and has been implemented at large and small institutions. However, many institutions still encounter barriers to EAD implementation. Our focus in this activity was to identify barriers to EAD implementation and recommend ways to get past them.

Background

More than 10 years since Encoded Archival Description was introduced, institutions or individuals who wish to implement EAD still encounter barriers to doing so.

Impact

Suggestions for overcoming barriers to EAD implementation are of great use to the archival community.

Details

A working group was formed to review barriers to EAD implementation, many of which have been outlined in the published literature. The group, composed of practitioners at large and small institutions, formulated suggestions for tackling the various obstacles to implementation. These suggestions were published in the report, Over, Under, Around, and Through: Getting Around Barriers to EAD Implementation (.pdf).

Outputs

Report

Over, Under, Around, and Through: Getting Around Barriers to EAD Implementation (.pdf). This report suggests tools or techniques to remove barriers as well as some suggestions for future work.

Webinar

A webinar was held on 4 March 2010. Over, Under, Around, and Through: Getting Around Barriers to EAD Implementation included segments presented by:

Michele Combs, Syracuse University
Mark A. Matienzo, Yale University
Lisa Spiro, Rice University
Merrilee Proffitt, OCLC Research

Recordings of the webinar are available:

.wmv (57.8MB/1:01min.)
.m4v (22.6MB/1:01min.)

More Information

Resources

Lisa Spiro, Archival Management Software: A Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources, January, 2009.
Katherine M. Wisser, EAD Tools Survey [pdf], 2005.
Sonia Yaco, It's Complicated: Barriers to EAD Implementation [pdf], American Archivist, Volume 71, Number 2 / Fall/Winter 2008.
Archivists' Toolkit Survey, 2008.

Most recent updates: Page content: 2011-04-21

Lead

Merrilee Proffitt