Session 205: EAD and the Global Information Environment: An Exploration of Opportunities
Yesterday afternoon I attended a session on EAD. As someone who works at a repository that does not yet take advantage of all that EAD can offer, I’m interested to know how practitioners are using EAD.
This session included a panel of 4 practitioners who collaborated in various ways to apply EAD:
Terry Catapano- Columbia University
Clifford Wulfman- Princeton University
Jon Stroop- Princeton University
Joanna DiPasquale- Vassar College
EAD was defined or categorized early in the session as a useful data structure, and more than merely a publishing tool for finding aids. EAD is evolving, and represents an on-going collaboration between archivists, digital librarians and programmers.
Suggestions for improving this collaboration:
– Learn the language of your fellow collaborators: we must be able to clearly articulate our needs so that our partners can begin to help us solve these problems.
– Make yourself, no matter what position you fill available to your partners and receptive of criticism and questions.
I left this session wishing the panelists had passed around a handout detailing their collaboration or used Powerpoint slides to underscore their ideas.