CIRCA:EAD and ERA uploading

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Below you can access Research Library Group's EAD Best Practice Guide:


Contents

Overview of EAD Structure:

<eadheader> contains information describing the finding aid itself
<frontmatter> contains prefatory matter incorporating information useful for the display or publication of the finding aid
<archdesc> contains description of archival materials and associated administrative and contextual information

Example:

<ead>
<eadheader>

  • lanencoding=
  • relatedencoding= (this section is often mapped to Dublin Code for easier search-ability)
  • repositoryencoding=
  • countryencoding=
  • dateencoding=
  • <eadid> (content must uniquely identify the EAD instance, should include at least one of the following: publicid, identifier, or url)
    • countrycode=
    • mainagencycode= (repository code)
    • publicid= (public text owner identifiers?? obsolete?)
    • identifier= (ARK)
    • url=
    • encodinganalog= (maps to URL)
  • <filedesc>
    • <titlestmt>
      • <titleproper> (use for formal title of the finding aid itself and not the title of the fonds or record group being described)
        • encodinganalog=
      • <author> (record the person or institution responsible for the intellectual content of the encoded finding aid)
        • encodinganalog=
    • <publicationstmt>
      • <publisher>
        • encodinganalog=
      • <date>
        • encodinganalog=
        • normal=
      • <address>
        • encodinganalog=

(etc.,)

Education and Research Archive

The University of Alberta Libraries [ERA homepage]


Limitations of ERA

The History and Archives group’s collection - Histories of Humanities Computing - has a number of documents in it’s possession which rights pertaining to access are yet to be determined. For example: sets of personal correspondence, associations’ meeting minutes, etc.

ERA provides three options for archiving: (1) public, (2) CCID password-protected, and (3) embargoed for preservation. The third option does not allow access to the items once they are embargoed as it allows for preservation only; these documents are preserved in a ‘dark room’. The alternative option for users is to deposit items under CCID password-protection and embargo the items until a specific date (for example 100 years). This allows the user to continue to have access to the item while ensuring it remains private. The problem with this option for our research group is that only the user who has deposited the item can access it. This is problematic as we envision the Histories of Humanities Computing collection to act as a living archive and continuously be added to and updated. This means that as research group members move on we could potentially lose access to embargoed items.

For our purposes we require a fourth option; private group access. Since this option is unavailable to us and its implementation is not expected in the foreseeable future we have created a group account: History Archive. This allows individual group members to deposit items with complicated rights of access while ensuring the group as a whole retains the ability to access all of the items in the collection.

To do so the group member must log on to the History Archive account and provide their University of Alberta CCID username and password when attempting to access embargoed documents.


ERA deposit ‘how-to’:

an example from the ERA website

Step 1 - about your item

Type of Item
Language
Title or Caption
Author or Creator
Additional Contributors
Subject/Keyword

  • Is this item about:
    • a time?
    • a place?

Description (abstract)
Citation for previous publication (If item has been previously published provide a citation)
Date created
Source (brief information about a physical item from which this item was derived)
Link to related item (must be a url)

Step 2 - Where does this item belong?

Choose a community
Choose a collection

Step 3 - Licensing information

Who should see this item and when should they see it?

  • Everyone
  • University of Alberta Community (CCID-Protected)
  • No-one (for preservation only)
  • embargo date

Choose a license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial No-Derivative Works 3.0 Unported)

Step 4 - Add your item

Upload your item

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