OAC Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description
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The OAC Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description, Version 2.0 (OAC BPG EAD) must be followed when contributing XML finding aids to the OAC, a core component of the University of California's California Digital Library (CDL). Version 2.0 supercedes version 1.0 of the OAC BPG EAD, as well as the Encoded Archival Description Retrospective Conversion Guidelines. Institutions should follow the present guidelines for all newly encoded finding aids.
These guidelines were prepared by the OAC Working Group's Metadata Standards Subcommittee during the spring and summer of 2003. This version of the OAC BPG EAD draws substantially on the RLG Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description (2002) compiled by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) EAD Advisory Group. Because the communities represented by the OAC BPGs and RLG BPGs have different needs and requirements, there are some differences between the two sets of guidelines.
The purpose of the OAC BPG EAD is to:
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Ensure a basic level of uniformity in the structure and encoding of finding aids
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Advance interoperability among digital materials from diverse institutions
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Promote efficient ingest procedures
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Facilitate access to digital materials by users
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Minimize costs
The OAC BPG EAD address the application of EAD within the OAC. Institutions not participating in the OAC are free to adopt the guidelines, in full or in part, for their local use.
These guidelines are based on the EAD Version 2002 DTD for archival finding aids maintained by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The OAC BPG EAD supplement the EAD Tag Library (EAD TL) and the EAD Application Guidelines (EADAG), both published by the SAA, by defining a core set of practices for encoding a subset of EAD elements required or recommended for use in finding aids contributed to the OAC. Refer to these SAA publications for official definitions of EAD elements and attributes, lists of attribute values, and recommended general applications.
The guidelines are substantially informed by the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) and Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS), the current U.S. data content standard for archival description.
The guidelines focus on the general issues pertinent to interoperability of finding aids in the OAC database. The absence of discussion of particular elements or attributes is not meant to imply they are unimportant. The guidelines are supplemented, particularly in regards to the description and contribution of digital objects, by the CDL Guidelines for Digital Objects (CDL GDO).
Four fundamental rules of multilevel description guide the description of archival materials. These are summarized below and should serve as overarching guidelines for all archival descriptions submitted to the OAC:
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Present all archival description in a hierarchical whole-to-part relationship that proceeds from general description of the collection to more specific descriptions of parts of the collection.
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At each hierarchical level, give only information relevant to that particular level. For example, do not provide an administrative history for an entire department if the creator of the materials being described is a division or branch.
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Give information that is common to multiple parts of the collection at the highest appropriate level. Do not repeat information at a lower level of description that has already been given at a higher level.
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In order to make explicit the position of a particular level of description within the hierarchy, embed the description at each level within the description at its next higher level. Also, identify each level of description (i.e., give it a name, such as "series").
As illustrated in Figure 1 above, an archival description can proceed through various levels and conclude at any level. The archivist determines the unique organization of finding aids for each collection based on information supplied by the creator or collector, appraisal information, or a physical survey of the materials themselves. Each institution's available resources and user needs will determine the level of detail of its finding aids. The finding aid models presented in the OAC BPG EAD are based on the convention of a finding aid describing the papers or records of a single person or organization that begins at the level for large accumulations of material (collections, record groups, fonds, or record series), and where suitable, proceeds to subsequent descriptions of series, subseries, files, and items or directly to files and items.
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The OAC database contains descriptions for all archival materials -- single items and small collections, as well as complex, multi-level collections. The OAC understands that it is impractical and inefficient to describe the entire range of archival materials to the same degree. Some extensive, homogeneous files of materials, such as the minutes of a single committee, can be satisfactorily described at the collection level, while a collection of two or three homogeneous series, such as the outgoing correspondence of an administrator and the minutes of one committee, can be described satisfactorily at the series or subseries level. In short, not all archival descriptions need descend to the more granular folder or item level.
In recognition of this range of options for describing archival materials, the OAC has devised two encoding schemes to steer finding aid producers toward more informed and cost effective choices and, most important, to help ensure the interoperability of all finding aids contributed to the OAC. The two encoding schemes described below inform the use of the guideline tables in Chapter 4.
The "OAC Basic" encoding scheme (Tables 4.1 and 4.2 combined) is the minimal scheme allowable for new finding aids added to the OAC database. It reflects single-level descriptive outputs at any level, but typically for large accumulations such as collections, record groups, fonds, or record series. It can, however, only describe materials at one explicitly articulated level and does not support multilevel encoding of subsequent lower levels (the "OAC Full" encoding scheme).
The "OAC Basic" encoding scheme is appropriate for the following kinds of collections:
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Small collections or single-items
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Large homogeneous collections (e.g., the minutes of a committee, and nothing else)
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Collections not yet fully processed or not expected to be processed for some time
In such instances, the collection may not warrant component description or a detailed listing of files or items. The OAC recommends, however, using the "OAC Full" encoding scheme for collections demonstrating greater complexity.
The "OAC Full" encoding scheme reflects multilevel descriptive outputs (Tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 combined). Multilevel descriptive outputs can describe archival material beginning at any level, and must include at least one other level than the one at which they begin. Typically multilevel descriptive outputs begin at the level of large accumulations such as collections, record groups, fonds, or record series. Multilevel finding aids represent the deepest encoding supported by the OAC BPG EAD.
Note that application of the "OAC Full" encoding scheme does not require that each subdivision in the collection be described to the file or item level.
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