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Hi Anna, We've met briefly a few years ago - I'm Special Materials Librarian at Victoria University of Wellington Library looking after collections of archives and manuscripts as well as rare books, fine printing, and other items which need to be used in a supervised reading room... In answer to your questions: 1. " Once you have the finding aid available in EAD, how do researchers go about requesting material? Is there a way to allow researchers to login to the system and put in call slips for items they want to use in the reading room? Or would you need a separate database to handle requests and issues?" Our reports give an Inventory ID reference, which clients in the reading room use a paper form to request. We do have an online order form, but not integrated into the reading room system as our online finding aids at the National Register of Archives and Manuscripts http://www.nram.org.nz/holder.php?id=77&parent=holderlist do not usually give item references. We have location information separately in our database, for security reasons. 2. " How time consuming is the work of creating the EAD finding aids as compared to say creating the finding aid in a word processing package or spreadsheet or database? Are there any packages available that allow the process to happen more or less automatically or do staff have to key in all the code?" When I began here, there were a variety of paper lists and card indexes, and no accession register. I did make an attempt to create individual EAD finding aids for various collections, but found it too time-consuming in a 1.5 person section, and moved to using the Australian HDMS database system (http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/HDMS/) as a management tool, because it produces (among other things) an automated EAD report. The database now includes provenance and accession information for all collections, with series information for some, item information for some series, and digitised images attached to some of these items. The database produces html and xml reports, and these are available in the reading room. I will be co-presenting a paper at the ARANZ conference in Wellington in October about some development work on our xml report - hope to see you there! National Library of NZ has used the TAPUHI system used by Alexander Turnbull Library, which is similar to your HAKENA system, to produce EAD e.g. for the Ranfurly collection http://ranfurly.natlib.govt.nz/content/about.htm ). 3. "What are the benefits for both researchers and the archives institution in using EAD as opposed other methods of making finding aids more available?" The reason I chose HDMS as a tool was that it produced an EAD report. I used to describe EAD as the 'emerging international standard' but consider it has now well and truly 'emerged'! As well as the benefits others have mentioned in terms of improvements longterm to access and searchability and a 'do it once' approach, I think a major benefit is the use of xml, which means that archival finding aids will ride the wave of wider IT/web developments. All the best, Nicola Frean Special Materials Librarian Victoria University of Wellington Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o te Ika a Maui P.O. Box 3438 Wellington NEW ZEALAND Office: Central Library, Room RB111 Phone: 64-4-463-5681 Fax: 64-4-463 6173 Website: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/library/collections/jcbr/index.aspx e-mail: [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Anna Blackman [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, 4 July 2005 1:01 p.m. To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Introduction from new list lurker Dear EAD listers, I am the Curator of an archives and manuscripts collection based at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. We collect archives and manuscripts from the both the University community and the wider community in our part of the country. The collection includes personal papers of many individuals, business records, school records, church records, sports clubs, University records, local associations and societies and everything in between! We currently have about 8000 linear metres of material. We use an AWAIRS software based product for collection management and arrangement and description, our version of the product is called Hakena. I joined the list a couple of weeks ago and have been reading the postings with interest since then. The reason I joined was so as to be able to learn more about the practicalities of EAD processing which is not used widely in this part of the world, yet. Obviously EAD has been or is being widely adopted in North America and Europe as a method of getting finding aids more widely available and searchable for researchers and seems to be becoming a standard. I have some questions about EAD and I hope that list members may share their thoughts; 1. Once you have the finding aid available in EAD, how do researchers go about requesting material? Is there a way to allow researchers to login to the system and put in call slips for items they want to use in the reading room? Or would you need a separate database to handle requests and issues? 2. How time consuming is the work of creating the EAD finding aids as compared to say creating the finding aid in a word processing package or spreadsheet or database? Are there any packages available that allow the process to happen more or less automatically or do staff have to key in all the code? 3. What are the benefits for both researchers and the archives institution in using EAD as opposed other methods of making finding aids more available? Thank you Anna Blackman Curator of Archives and Manuscripts The Hocken Collections University of Otago PO Box 56 Dunedin New Zealand ph 64 -03-4798867 fax 64-03-4795078 email:[log in to unmask] http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/libs/hocken/index.html