We are using the Archon software which
creates a web portal into what we call the Special Collections
Catalog. By entering the collection information and finding aid,
the software produces an EAD as well as an OCLC record/worksheet.
We send the EAD to the
Archon does request a collection title and
the collections are alphabetical. We’ve had to make some creative
changes in titles. For example, “The Pensacola Yacht
Club Records” looked great on the boxes and inventories but it
would be under “T” if we didn’t change it to “Pensacola
Yacht Club Records.” Collections that say “
for a title, but in the finding aid would
say “
It has taken us forty years, but yes, we’ve
reached the point where we do have some twins, as I call them, that would be “Smith
Family Papers” or “Jones Family Papers”…more than one
collection with a similar title, so for titling online, they are changed to
Smith Family Papers of Pensacola, or something like
Smith (John) Family Papers….so the
alphabetical titling does not end up as two identical titles.
If we are getting University records from
an office, and perhaps there are two collections, they can be separated in the
titling by time periods “UWF Student Affairs Division Records, 1967-1984”
and “UWF Student Activities Division Records, 1981-2006” that kind
of thing. If there are individual item records sometimes where a
collection was one item, e.g. “Galvez, Benardo de, Letter
1781” and you have other similar items, then the title might
include the date. We are making the collections accessible
and not spending great amounts of time reprocessing or combining collections
where we can.
We are having, however, to sometimes
create finding aids when one was too vague or not done.
Dean
Dean DeBolt
University
Librarian, Special Collections
John C. Pace
Library,
850-474-2213
From:
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008
11:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: browsing Finding Aids
online
I would be interested to hear how institutions present an online
interface to enable users to browse their Finding Aids- specifically I would
like to hear from institutions that have automated the process from an
underlying database, and are doing so either on –the-fly, or through
scheduled batch processes.
One problem we anticipate is alphabetic zing the collection title
without complex processing. We expect there are other issues with
automating this process.
All feedback is appreciated – or feel free to contact off
–list.
Thank you,
Heather Rolen
212-960-5400 ext 6172