Two of the three Yale repositories reviewing the DTD use an "Overview of
Papers/Records" section as the first piece (after the title page and table
of contents) in our current finding aid format. The content of the overview
consists of a catalog record without fixed fields or access points; it is
very much like what the researcher would see in an online catalog. When
rethinking our finding aid format a year ago, we discovered that the catalog
record contained a good deal of information not found in the finding aid,
forcing a researcher to look in two places for a complete description. We
also found that a good number of our biographical or historical notes in the
finding aid were a very slight elaboration on the 545 in the MARC-AMC record
(same for scope and content).
Looking to improve efficiency, we decided that in most cases, the 545 note
in the catalog record was sufficient for the finding aid as well. In a few
cases (donor relations, significance or complexity of the creator or
materials), a more detailed biographical or historical note and scope and
content note might be needed. Even in these cases, however, we felt that it
was useful to give the researcher a summary description in the finding aid
so that they would not need to read a long narrative note unless they needed
more detailed information.
When attempting to encode this using the EAD, we found it difficult because
we had two versions of the same tags, <bioghist> and <scopecontent> at the
same level <archdesc>. After trying some very convoluted and bizarre
schemes to accommodate this practice, we posed the question to Dr. EAD (aka
Daniel) when he was with us last week and arrived at the following approach:
make <bioghist>, <scopecontent>, and <admininfo> available in <did>; when
used within the <did> as summary, catalog-type notes, they would have the
marcanalog attribute set with the appropriate value. E.g., <did> <bioghist
marcanalog="545"> ... </bioghist> </did> in the overview version, but simply
<bioghist> in the expanded version. This allows for different manipulation,
indexing, and formatting of the two versions as needed.
We have not yet explored the logical consequence of this which would be to
require (as a local guideline) that all overview elements have a marcanalog
attribute set to the appropriate field/subfield tag.
Rich Szary
Manuscripts and Archives
Yale University
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