Maximizing Metadata: Exploring the EAD-MARC Relationship

Abstract

Encoded Archival Description (EAD) has provided a new way to approach manuscript and archival collection representation. A review of previous representational practices and problems highlights the benefits of using EAD. This new approach should be considered a partner rather than an adversary in the access-providing process. Technological capabilities now allow for multiple metadata schemas to be employed in the creation of the aid, Crosswalks allow for MARC records to be generated from the detailed encoding of an EAD In the process of creating these crosswalks and detailed encoding, EAD has generated more changes in traditional processes and procedures than originally imagined. The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries sought to test the process of crosswalking EAD to MARC, investigating how this process used technology as well as changed physical procedures. By creating a complex and indepth EAD template for aids, with accompanying related encoding analogs embedded wi thin the element structure, MARC records were generated that required minor editing and revision for inclusion in the NCSU Libraries OPAC. The creation of this bridge between EAD and MARC has stimulated theoretical discussions about the role of collaboration, technology, and expertise in the ongoing struggle to maximize access to our collections. While this study is a only a first attempt at harnessing this potential, a presentation of the tensions, struggles, and successes provides illumination to some of the larger issues facing special collections today. ********** The Association of Research Libraries' spotlight on special collections in Building on Strength: Developing an ARL Agenda for Special Collections has brought to the forefront many of the challenges and strengths that special collections have to offer to the research library setting (Association of Research Libraries 2001). The concern over access issues expressed in the Action Agenda highlights the need for a renewed focus with a realistic understanding of the process and the expenditure of resources. The agenda has confirmed a longstanding consensus among curators and archivists that access is a primary goal in the archival endeavor. In the past, archivists have largely been left to their own creative devices in communicating the contents of their collections to the public. To facilitate access, they created card catalogs, inventories, registers, indexes of various types, calendars, file plans, and the ubiquitous, nebulous finding aid. Print catalogs made it possible to advertise beyond the confines of the repository, but this was spotty exposure at best. Repositories needed to work steadily to expose potential researchers to the location, content, and contextual information of collections. Online catalogs provided one ray of hope for repositories. Repositories could create collection-level representations of their holdings to entice patrons to their doors. This served two purposes. First, patrons using an online catalog to research a topic would be directed to the special collections material because of its relevance, when they previously may not have considered archival or manuscript materials as germane to their research. Second, with the advent of the Web and the suspension of geographical and temporal limitations, distant patrons could find the manuscript or archival material that they sought. Electronic union databases aided in this effort, but patrons needed to know that those databases existed and how to search them. Catalog records, though, make poor substitutes for the traditionally rich descriptive documents that archivists create to represent their collections. The limitations of MARC, including field- and record-character limitations in some integrated library systems and a lack of hierarchical structure, mask the true intellectual work of arrangement and description done by archivists. …

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