Adapting Archives to EMu

British School at Athens

Corporate RecordsExcavation RecordsPersonal PapersByzantine Research Fund ArchiveArt CollectionExhibitions

BSA Archive Holdings

The Byzantine Research Fund Archive was one of the Access databases migrated into EMu as part of our pilot project

BRF Catalogued on an item level but lacked upper tier structure in the archival arrangement

Hierarchy was created under the Archives tab so we could easily view and manage the archival arrangement structure

Migrated into EMu

EMu Archive Tab with hierarchies

Noel-Baker Personal Papers

New Data into EMuThe Photo Archive Collection

The Photographic Albums are currently being catalogued in EMu

Arranged at Item Level DescriptionDigital images of pages and individual items

Photo Archive Collection

The family papers of the Noel-Bakers were recently acquired and are currently being catalogued

The collection is arranged in Series and is being described down to Item Level

It is the first collection we have directly entered into EMu

Noel-Baker Personal Papers

The key structural fields of an archival description proscribed by ISAD (G) are:Identity Statement areaContext AreaContent and structure areaNotes areaDescription control area

Which are broken down over three EMu tabs:• ISAD (G) Identity• Content• Allied Materials

Archive Cataloguing in EMu

ISAD (G) Identity

Content

Allied Materials

Gives digital dimension Allows for multiple access pointsFramework for cataloguing standardsHierarchies in Archive Tab and Relationship Tab

allow easy access to view structure as its being created

Links to other commonalities of DepartmentsAllows flexibility for collections out of

standardized Archive remit, in our case the Art Collection and Exhibition, to be catalogued under that department.

Advantages

Work flow procedures difficult to establishISAD (G) has specifically numbered fields which

should be noted in the tabs or in the help windows; e.g. Reference code is 3.1.1, Title is 3.1.2, etc.

Disadvantages

• Web interface does not display collection appropriately

For the BRF Archive we

selected fields that could

be searched and

presented through the

public interface but the

way they are displayed is

not clear.

For example, the

summary data displayed

above the image is a

mass of information that

would be confusing to a

researcher and only

duplicates certain fields

shown below; also, for a

field, such as ‘Creator’ the

distinction between

multiple names is also not

clear

As with the ISAD (G) tabs the work flow of what will be exported for a EAD framework is not clear.

An archival finding aid to be appropriately displayed through EAD should have interlinked pages in the web interface showing the hierarchy.

Export of EAD for web interface

Example of user friendly tiered approach of web interface for archive collections

1. Collection List

2. ISDAD(G) Identity Statement

3. Brief List of Series

4. Item Level Display

ConclusionsA more clearly laid out workflow with exact

correspondence to ISAD (G) and EAD terminology will consolidate the information structure and will contribute significantly to the organization of client archives

The restructuring of the web interface to properly display collections will open up the access points to external users and allow linking into other archives leading to other institutional alliances.