Fun with EAD!

May 11th - Sacramento Room

On Mother's Day (yes, this was difficult) I faithfully volunteered again in the Sacramento Room to put in a few hours converting the finding aid I've written for MC 32 (George Guth Family Papers) into XML language.  The conversion is done according to a reference standard known as encoded archival description (EAD) - essentially 'cataloguing' for archives.  Following a template provided by the archivist, I assigned EAD tags for each component of the finding aid (collection title, description, abstract, extent, etc.) that will allow for the guide to eventually be viewable on the Online Archive of California.  The Online Archive of California (OAC) provides free public access to primary sources—including manuscripts, photographs, artwork, scientific data and more—through more than 20,000 collection guides and 200,000 digitized images and documents. Some of Sacramento Room collection guides/finding aids that have already been uploaded onto the OAC website can be found at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/institutions/Sacramento+Public+Library. 

The Online Archive of California also provides an guide for best practices in EAD, which can be found here: http://www2.archivists.org/groups/technical-subcommittee-on-encoded-archival-description-ead/encoded-archival-description-ead

Once my finding aid for the Guth Family Papers is encoded properly, it will be sent to the Library's Collection Services for a catalog record to be created - it will then eventually be uploaded onto OAC, completing my third objective for this semester's volunteer position in the Sacramento Room.