As far as EAD is concerned, there isn't a size problem: rather it
depends upon your presentation methods as to where the problems can
happen. If you start having long series at the same <c0?> level, the
normal means of breaking the document into manageable pieces does not
work.
For example, we have some medieval cartularies which contain a whole
series of documents which are not broken up into further groups - thus
you could have <c01> [the volume] containing a few hundred <c02>s [the
documents]. The normal presentation means is to show one level in the
left window, and by clicking on a heading, its contents in the right
window, stepping down however many levels. At some point you come to the
final level, and if this is a long sequence (as with the cartulary) it
takes a very long time to download and display. In our case (Dynaweb)
this sort of document is much slower than say an 8MB EAD file that has a
large number of regular subdivisions. In another case, an 8 volume
finding aid devoted 3 volumes to a single sequence - correspondence -
which worked very badly - so I split the sequence up into 10 year
periods to make more manageable chunks. EAD doesn't have a mechanism for
dividing itself up into manageable sized pieces, just archivally
relevant ones (which I stretched in the case above). It would depend
upon your presentation software, but it might be possible to embed
processing instructions into the EAD file which could fire some kind of
splitting action.
Another alternative (yes, we try everything) for big groups of finding
aids is to have two levels of EAD finding aids, a top level summary
guide with links from each section to a subsidiary detailed finding aid.
Good luck
--
# Richard Higgins
# Durham University Library
# Archives & Special Collections
# Palace Green
# Durham
# DH1 3RN
# E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
"Miss L.V. Mitchell" wrote:
>
> Hello
>
> I have recently begun a project to create a large on-line finding aid
> for the University of Liverpool's own archives. The finding aid will be
> launched on the University web-site when complete. Around 40 A4-sized
> hard-copy finding aids have been retro-converted into ead, and the task
> at hand is to tidy up the encoding and create a useable finding aid. There is
> far too much data to create a one-document finding aid, so I am
> intending to create a series of smaller records which will be linked
> using links on the website.
>
> I was wondering whether anyone else has undertaken a similar project or
> has any experience of creating large electronic finding aids and could
> offer advice or opinions.
>
> Thanks
>
> Larysa
>
> **********************************
> Larysa Mitchell
>
> Project Archivist
>
> Special Collections and Archives
> Sydney Jones Library
> University of Liverpool
> PO Box 123
> Liverpool
> L69 3DA
>
> tel. 0151 794 2696
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/index.html
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