Finding aids lead users to information from and about archives. Basic finding aids include general or subject guides, descriptive inventories, series listings, accession registers, card catalogs, special lists, shelf and box lists, indexes, and for electronic records, software documentation.

The Burlington Archives is implementing a national standard, Encoded Archival Description (EAD), an SGML DTD (Standard Generalized Markup Language Document Type Definition). The Archives creates finding aids in XML (EXtensible Markup Language, a subset of SGML) and uses a freeware program, xt, to convert the XML-encoded finding aid and style sheet into an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) finding aid. The HTML finding aid is published on this web site.

HTML is an unsophisticated publishing tool, since it just provides formatting i.e., this text is bold and italicized-- HTML does not document the information inside the tags. XML provides structured content and documents the information inside the tags i.e., this text is a title, this text is a date, etc. Publishers of web-browser software such as Internet Explorer and Netscape are making browsers XML-compliant, in accordance with World Wide Web Consortium (www3) recommendations.

EAD will allow shared databases of national and international finding aids, similar to what MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) did for the library world. EAD maps across to ISAD(G) (General International Standard Archival Description), which was adopted by the International Council on Archives (ICA) in 1999. It also has the potential of incorporating a developing museum standard, which is being developed by CIMI, a consortium of cultural heritage institutions and organizations.

Finding aids provide detailed information about the collection, information that cannot be included in the catalog record: the catalog record provides a pointer toward the finding aid. More and more institutions are utilizing the MARC 856 field to provide a link between the MARC catalog record and the online finding aid. The Archives plans to connect electronic finding aids with catalog records in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMUC), provided free-of-charge by the Library of Congress. This will provide international accessibility via Research Library Group's database, RLIN. RLIN is also offering a new product, Archival Resources.

Due to technical limitations and a step-learning curve, the Archives is providing a simple implementation of EAD. Although we are taking small steps, EAD has immense potential for publishing and information-retrieval. Once finding aids are encoded, the information has a much longer lifespan than less-sophisticated HTML. To see how other organizations are implementing EAD, see the Society of America Archivists' EAD roundtable web page. The Online Archive of California is one of my favorite consortium projects.

Can you help?
If you have skills with (HTML or XML) stylesheets and would like to volunteer some time, the Archivist would love your help! My XML stylesheet is not behaving, and I would greatly appreciate volunteer assistance.