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I tend to be an interested reader, but not partipant in this list as my responsibilities now are heavily focused on getting or saving resources and management of programs for my institution, but first let me give a resounding cheer to see EAC-CPF is now available...having been involved in early discussions of the need for contextual information, it is wonderful to have this tool available.

From a non-detailed encoding perspective, here is my answer to why EAC when there are "traditional" authority files....EAC is the whole context, not just the authoritative version of a corporate, personal or family name.  It gives one the capacity to provide a lot of information, for example with an organization, on the functions of that organization, its predecessor and successor names/organizational structure, leaders of the organization, and so forth.  That's a lot more stuff than one finds in traditional authority files.  And it is absolutely and truly critical information for users to have if they are really going to understand and fairly interpret the records we describe.  

It's particularly useful in an organization like mine, the New York State Archives, where we have over 5000 record series  comprising over 100,000 cubic feet of records.   We have sometimes tens, if not hundreds of series created by one agency.  Rather than embed the contextual and general historical information on the agency in each finding aid (what a waste of time to do and manage), we (as do many other state government archives) have "agency history" records that we connect to the individual series.     Many of us did this by creating bizarre MARC records to accomodate that information (do a search on OCLC with agency or administrative history in the title to see some), but it was making the best of a bad situation. 

EAC-CPF gives us the structure to provide this information in more useful and productive ways, and may hold out some interesting possibilities for sharing contextual information across repositories--in New York, for example, lots of us have records from the same people or families--Nelson Rockefeller, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and institutions like governments, colleges, businesses, and could potentially have shared contextual files with information that we would not all have to do the research to replicate.  

There are lots of interesting possibilities and new ways to provide information for users--I look forward to seeing some of the ways we can break out of the traditional paper-based linear approach by using this.  And now if someone can get started on a DTD for functions, forms of material, and geographic places, it will be truly swell!

Hope this is of some help--hey, this is gonna be fun to do, believe me.


Kathleen




Kathleen D. Roe
Director of Archives and Records Management Operations
New York State Archives
9C35 Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230
[log in to unmask]
(voice) 518-473-4254
(fax)  518-473-7573

>>> Jordon Steele <[log in to unmask]> 9/25/2009 12:16 PM >>>
Ryan,

I, too, don't fully understand how EAC-CPF is different from/relates to traditional authority files.  (Solidarity, brother.)  I'm hoping the webinar Michele linked to will answer our questions or give us the opportunity to ask them.

Best,
 
Jordon
 
Jordon Steele
Archivist
Biddle Law Library
Penn Law School
3460 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3406
(215) 898-5011


-----Original Message-----
From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michele R Combs
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 11:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: Implementing EAC-CPF

> Date:         Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:36:10 -0600
> From:         Ryan Lee
> Subject:      Implementing EAC-CPF
>
> Hi all, I hope this is the right audience to send this question. I am just 
> looking for examples of institutions who have started implementing 
> EAC-CPF.


Hi Ryan --

This doesn't quite answer your question, but following is info on an EAC webinar that might answer some of your questions.  This was posted to the Archives and Archivists list; I'm not sure if it was posted here at the EAD list as well.  The EAC website http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/eac-cpf-in-use.html also has a list of places that have implemented EAC in some fashion.

Michele

*************************

The EAC Working Group is planning a web-based workshop on EAC-CPF on 8 October 2009, facilitated by OCLC Research. While the "Final Draft" of EAC-CPF (EAC for short) is out for review by the community, we hope it will be useful to offer a workshop, open to all, for questions and suggestions. We want to hear from you! The EAC website is at:
http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ 
 
Please save the date. The time for the "web seminar" is not set yet, but will be shortly. We might offer two sessions on the 8th, in order to ensure participation from folks in time zones ranging from Australia to Greece, and beyond.
 
On behalf of the EAC Working Group,
Jennifer Schaffner and Katherine M. Wisser
***************************
Jennifer Schaffner
[log in to unmask] 
Program Officer (and member of the EAC Working Group)
OCLC Research and the RLG Partnership
650.287.2140