Building a National Finding Aid Network
OCLC Research was a partner on the California Digital Library-led, IMLS-funded project NAFAN to build the foundations for a national finding aid discovery infrastructure in the United States. OCLC led research efforts that would inform project outcomes.
Outputs
Publications
Summary of Research: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project
31 May 2023
Chela Scott Weber, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Brooke Doyle, Lesley A. Langa, Merrilee Proffitt, Bruce Washburn, Itza A. Carbajal
Synthesizes OCLC’s findings for the Building a National Finding Aid Network project. The research investigated end user and contributor needs for finding aid aggregations and evaluated EAD encoded finding aid data quality and consistency from existing regional archival aggregators.
EAD Analysis: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project
30 May 2023
Bruce Washburn, Merrilee Proffitt, Chela Scott Weber
Analyzes a corpus of EAD encoded collection descriptions provided by regional finding aid aggregators in the US to assess existing EAD data as raw material for building a national finding aid aggregation.
Focus Group Interviews: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project
30 May 2023
Chela Scott Weber, Merrilee Proffitt, Lesley A. Langa, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Brittany Brannon, Brooke Doyle
Investigates the needs of archivists and others who might contribute to a national archival aggregator through focus group interviews with archivists and archives administrators from across the United States.
Pop-up Survey: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project
30 May 2023
Lesley A. Langa, Chela Scott Weber, Lynn Silipigni Connaway
Summarizes OCLC’s findings from a national survey of more than 3300 end users searching for archival materials online for the Building a National Finding Aid Project.
User Interviews: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project
30 May 2023
Chela Scott Weber, Itza A. Carbajal, Lesley A. Langa, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Brooke Doyle, Brittany Brannon, Merrilee Proffitt
Details methods and summarizes findings from semi-structured individual interviews with end users of archival aggregation.
Blog Posts
NAFAN focus groups: Aligning participant selection with project values
2 February 2022
By Chela Scott Weber
As part of our NAFAN research activities, OCLC Research conducted focus group interviews with archival practitioners. This post discusses the questions, focus group selection, and outcomes.
Connecting EAD headings to controlled vocabularies
6 January 2022
By Bruce Washburn
Washburn discusses if EAD content headings are associated with controlled vocabularies, or if they can be.
Getting to know users of archival aggregation sites
30 September 2021
By Lesley Langa
Langa details an OCLC Research study that takes a comprehensive approach to understanding the breadth of users and the depth of their search behavior across different archival aggregators.
A research roadmap for Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN)
5 August 2021
By Lynn Silipigni Connaway
Connaway describes the development and design of the NAFAN project research.
View a complete list of NAFAN related blog posts