OAC Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description

Recommended practice is to encode a machine-readable unique identifier for the finding aid.

Institutions may choose one of the following options for encoding unique identifiers:

• Leave this value empty. The CDL will assign an Archival Resource Key (ARK) to the finding aid upon ingest, and will internally manage the ARK.
• Encode a pre-assigned ARK; in this case, the CDL will not re-assign an ARK to the finding aid upon ingest.

The ARK is a machine-readable unique identifier scheme for persistent access to digital objects (including images, texts, data sets, and finding aids), currently being tested and implemented by the CDL for collections that it manages. Given that ARKs are specially constructed and globally unique identifiers, their production and management is controlled by the CDL. Institutions have several options for obtaining ARKs: they may request an ARK from the CDL for a particular finding aid, or they may mint ARKs locally using a CDL tool. For more information on the use of ARKs at the CDL, and options for institutions to obtain ARKs, please see the CDL ARK service description.

Encode the filing title of the finding aid and not the title of the fonds or record group being described. Note that the filing title is a modified form of the formal title. The filing title appears in browsing lists on the OAC.

For papers created, collected, or associated with an individual, the filing title should begin with the individual's last name, followed by the first name and optional middle initial, which should both be in parentheses:

When two individuals are responsible for a collection and they share the same last name, put the last name at the beginning of the filing title. Then list both names and, optionally, a middle initial, which should both be in parentheses:

When the individuals do not share the same last name, list the most appropriate name first, with corresponding first name following in parentheses, and then the second last name with its corresponding first name in another set of parentheses:

Corporate names and family names should generally be listed as in their established form or as they appear. Use appropriate abbreviations such as Corp., Co., Inc., Misc., Dept., etc. to maintain brevity: