We have dealt with the same challenge at Duke, having several active
collections which have required additions to the existing EAD finding aid.
We have dealt with additions following the practice commonly used for
oversize materials - i.e. treating oversize as a series of its own at the
<c01> level such as:

<c01><did><unittitle>Oversize Materials</unittitle></did>
<c02><did><unittitle>Correspondence Series</unittitle></did>
<c03><did><unittitle>[etc ...] </unittitle></did>

Thus the added accession, which is typically added on to the end of a
finding aid as if it was an additional series, might be encoded as:

<c01><did><unittitle>Accession 1998-0199 </unittitle></did>
<c02><did><unittitle>[etc...]</unittitle></did>
<c03><did><unittitle>[etc...] </unittitle></did>

While this solution may not be perfectly ideal (granted, <unitid> may be
more appropriate for accession numbers than <unittitle>),  it has the
benefits of:

Grouping all collection contents in the same <dsc>
Uniformity with practice of oversize materials
Works well with existing in-house encoding/display processes (a practical
vs. theoretical consideration)

I will be curious to hear other's practices and suggestions for dealing with
this issue.

Stephen Miller
Duke University
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-----Original Message-----
From: kathlene ferris <[log in to unmask]>
To: Multiple recipients of list EAD <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, November 18, 1999 10:27 AM
Subject: Additions to collections


>I am looking for input on ways to handle additions to manuscript
>collections in EAD finding aids. We are doing a major recon project
>involving both manuscript collections and archival records from four state
>institutions. This being a grant funded project, time is an important
>factor.
>
>Many manuscript collections, especially those of living authors and
>community activists, and organizational records contain one or more
>additions (subsequent accessions) that are added to the end of the existing
>finding aid. Currently, we are using nested <dsc>s, the first encompasing
>the entire contents list, and within that one <dsc> for the original
>accession and a successive <dsc> for each addition.
>
>My questions are: 1. How are others treating additions to collections?, 2.
>Recon projects aside, are nested <dsc>s acceptable for new finding aids?
>
>Kathlene Ferris
>Online Archive of New Mexico
>University of New Mexico General Library
>