Encoding across Frontiers: Proceedings of the European Conference on Encoded Archival Description and Context (EAD and EAC), Paris, France, 7‐8 October 2004

Citation

Yeo, G. (2007), "Encoding across Frontiers: Proceedings of the European Conference on Encoded Archival Description and Context (EAD and EAC), Paris, France, 7‐8 October 2004", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 184-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330710742962

Within little more than a decade Encoded Archival Description (EAD), as a system for marking up archival finding aids using XML, has become increasingly influential in the archival community. From its origins in the Berkeley Finding Aid Project in the early 1990s, EAD achieved rapid success and has been adopted by large numbers of archivists both in North America and in the United Kingdom. Its value as a platform‐independent environment for maintaining and publishing descriptions of archives has been widely recognised, and this volume (co‐published as Journal of Archival Organization Vol. 3 Nos 2/3) marks its transition from a purely Anglo‐American phenomenon to a de facto standard with a substantial presence across continental Europe.

The conference, the proceedings of which are represented here, was the first large‐scale gathering of EAD devotees in Europe. Delegates from 13 countries attended the conference, and 11 of these countries provided speakers. The edited proceedings include papers on the conversion of existing finding‐aids to EAD format, the development of tools to facilitate the creation and use of descriptions, and approaches to the publication of EAD finding aids on the Internet, as well as a résumé, by Michael Fox, of a round table discussion on the status of professional training in the use of EAD.

Two introductory papers are included, but in general this is not a book for newcomers to the subject. Most of the delegates at the conference were professionals who were already exploring the use of EAD, and many of the papers are detailed case studies written with this audience in view. They provide a wealth of information on the experiences of archivists who have sought to implement EAD, the challenges they met and the technological solutions they adopted; but many of the papers assume some prior knowledge of the EAD standard, and readers coming to EAD for the first time would be well advised to begin with Haworth Press's earlier text Encoded Archival Description on the Internet (Pitti and Pitti andDuff, 2002), before tackling Encoding Across Frontiers.

To judge from this volume, archivists appear to be embracing the potential of XML encoding with enthusiasm. Besides 12 papers on different aspects of EAD, Encoding Across Frontiers includes a paper by Blanca Desantes describing the use of an XML document‐type definition to support a directory of archive repositories in Spain and South America, and concludes with four papers on EAD's younger sibling Encoded Archival Context (EAC).

These last four papers are of particular interest, since they provide what is (as yet) the fullest published discussion of a new international initiative to provide an XML framework for the documentation of archive creators, corresponding to and deriving from the International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (International Council on Archives, 2004). The development of EAC marks further recognition by the archival community both of the importance of capturing contextual information and of the logical necessity of maintaining such information separately from information about archival materials themselves. Since EAC is still new on the block, the papers which describe and discuss it (by Richard Szary, Françoise Bourdon, Stefano Vitali and Per‐Gunnar Ottosson) are necessarily less concerned with points of detail than the papers on EAD, and focus more on the arguments of archival theory and practice which led to the development of the EAC structure. Because of the importance of the EAC initiative, because many archivists are not yet familiar with it, and because (as Ottosson notes) there is much in EAC which has relevance to museums and libraries as well as archives, these papers should be of interest to a wider audience than some of the more technical papers in the earlier part of the volume.

The paper by Vitali, although ostensibly a case study of the Sistema Informativo of the State Archive of Florence, rises beyond its immediate setting to address more profound issues of concern to all archivists, irrespective of their interest in encoding systems. What are the boundaries of archival context? Does “context” refer only to the context in which archives were created (as the compilers of EAC have assumed)? Or does it extend to contexts of custody, use and interpretation? Vitali's paper is the only one in the volume to consider larger issues such as these. In general, the other contributors keep their gaze firmly fixed on the world of mark‐up, data architecture and online navigation. Nevertheless, for those with an interest in the use of XML to support archival description, and for those wrestling with the design of their own EAD or EAC implementations, this volume provides an impressively solid and reliable overview of the state of the art in Europe in 2004.

References

International Council on Archives (2004), ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families, 2nd ed., available at: www.ica.org/biblio/ISAAR2EN.pdf.

Pitti, D. and Duff, W. (Eds) (2002), Encoded Archival Description on the Internet, Haworth Press, New York, NY.