The situation I'm referring to is one in which I've been asked to
re-engineer an inventory whose arrangement is simple--there are no levels
defined at all--and whose item-level description is quite detailed and
complex. I thought to put he descriptions under series headings, keeping
intact the extensive description. I argued that my changes to the data
didn't touch the physical arrangement at all, and the description of the
collection is the archivist's work, not the creator's. But the imposition
of series on the description was still viewed as a violation of the
creator's intent, because the physical arrangement of the collection was
considered to be one and the same as the creator's intellectual arrangement
of his own materials. The inventory was conceived as a document that would
as faithfully as possible reflect the creator's intent.
I don't necessarily think the person making the above argument is
wrong. I'm just wondering how often this situation occurs, and whether it
is going to be an ongoing issue in EAD implementation.
Amy McCrory
Archivist
Cartoon Research Library
Ohio State University
At 06:40 PM 10/29/2002 +0100, Alegandro Gomez wrote:
>Amy,
>please, could you be a bit more explicit? Such as I understand, the
>creator's original order would define the levels (series or not); even if
>the original order is not actually arranged, two levels could be defined:
>fonds and pieces. In addition, encoding according EAD allows you to re-
>arrange in the computer information for physically not-arranged
>materials, or something like this. Really, I would need more information
>to give a good answer.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Amy McCrory <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:17:22 -0500
>Subject: question about re-engineering
>
> > Has anyone, in attempting to re-engineer legacy finding aids for EAD
> > compatibility, encountered resistance on the basis that re-ordering of
> > elements into series and other hierarchical levels would violate the
> > creator's original order?
> >
> > Amy McCrory
> > Archivist
> > Cartoon Research Library
> > Ohio State University
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