Thanks for pointing that amazing resource out, as it’s been a favorite of mine ever since I first saw it at the Computers in Libraries conference in 2008 (and I think that the new updates are even better!). But it isn’t what I had in mind, since it is only indexing a fraction of the EAD record (i.e., it’s not including, for just one example, <unittitle>’s in the <dsc>).

Anyhow, I’m not suggesting that the entire EAD should be included in the OPAC, I’m just trying to figure out who is doing so right now. In the past, only MARC records were able to uploaded into an ILS, but this is obviously changing now with the proliferation of “discovery layers” (and in those two examples I provided earlier, both of those OPACs permit searching throughout the entire EAD, even though neither of those resources are the primary gateway for their EAD records).

One final example that I’ll point out, even though it doesn’t search EAD records, is the Hathi Trust Digital Library:

Which is a great illustration, since right now they have 2 ways to search their resources:

1) “About” their items searches the MARC records

2) “Within” their items searches the full-text from the OCR

In this case, though, entire EAD records (not just their MARC derivatives) would still fall into the “about” camp. Nevertheless, they are rarely included in their entirety in the OPAC (but it’s now possible to do just that, with a bit of extra work, of course).

Mark

From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Aikens, Barbara
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 11:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Adding EAD to the 'layer of discovery'?

I think the newly re-engineered Smithsonian’s Collections Search Center does this, but perhaps I’m not fully understanding the question. The Search Center contains MARC records, and links to EAD finding aids, and other resources. I’m pretty sure that Ching-Hsien created a metadata model and an interface or interfaces to harvest data from multiple datasets, from all sources – museums, libraries, and archives. I’m probably not explaining it very well.

Here’s the link http://collections.si.edu/search/

Ching-Hsien would be happy to answer any questions.

Happy Holidays!

Barbara D. Aikens

Chief, Collections Processing

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Ph: 202-633-7941

email: [log in to unmask]

Mailing Address

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

PO Box 37012

Victor Bldg., Suite 2200, MRC 937

Washington, DC 20013-7012

From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Custer, Mark
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 3:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Adding EAD to the 'layer of discovery'?

I’m curious if anyone on the list has experience with adding their EAD documents into a larger discovery system?

Here are two examples of what I mean:

· Triangle Research Library Network now indexes (and displays) entire EAD documents.

Example (in which I’ve restricted my results to “archival materials” and entered “ammons” as my keyword):

http://search.trln.org/search?Nty=1&Ntk=Keyword&Ntt=ammons&N=200092

· University of Chicago library’s implementation of AquaBrowser seems to index entire EAD documents.

Example (in which I’ve searched for “American Automobile Brief History", quotes included, and where the first 3 results returned should be for archival finding aids):

http://lens.lib.uchicago.edu/?q=%22american%20automobile%20brief%20history%22

So, this leads me to three questions in particular:

1. Can you point me to any other online examples of “discovery tools” that are ingesting entire EAD documents? Summon, Encore, Primo, Blacklight, etc.??? (but, again, I’m not asking about OPACS that only search a MARC surrogate of the EAD)

2. For those of you that are including the entire EAD in your library’s discovery tool, did you already have surrogate MARC records for those collections in your catalog? If so, how are you dealing with those now that you’re adding the EAD?

3. What do you think of whole retrieval experience (advanced search options, facets, incorporation into the relevancy algorithm, etc.)?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice and/or other examples that might be out there,

Mark Custer