Creating OAIDC records from EAD-encoded finding aids

While many of the collections to be digitized as part of this project are quite small, others such as the Civil War-related series of the Telamon Cuyler papers are quite voluminous. We still need to create folder-level Dublin Core (DC) records for ingest into the DLG union metadata catalog. One of the parameters of these projects is that we must re-use existing descriptive metadata. So we use the EAD-encoded finding aids that each project already has. (For more information on EAD, see the official Library of Congress EAD pages.)

For these larger collections, we export the EAD-encoded finding aids from AT, an archival management system currently utilized by AHC and  Hargrett (GHS has been funded in a separate NHPRC project to create an instance of AT to host their finding aids). The resulting xml files contain both high-level archival description and folder-level description. In other words, the finding aids contain data (such as access restrictions, collection creation, subject terms, biographical notes, etc.) that applies to the whole collection as well as information that applies to each file unit (such as title and date). Using a perl script, DLG staff create folder-level DC records that include the folder-specific information as well as information that applies to the entire collection.

Collection-wide information

EAD element	==>	DC field
prefercite	==>	dc:rights
controllaccess	==>	dc:subject/dc:type
origination	==>	dc:creator

Folder-level information

EAD element	==>	DC field
unittitle	==>	dc:title
unitdate	==>	dc:coverage.temporal
container	==>	used to create dc:identifier and dc:source

Once the records are created, we spot check them to make sure that all the data transformed correctly before loading them into the DLG union metadata catalog using our xml importer. Next, using a locally created script, we create a tab-delimited file of digital object links for import back into AT. Finally, the digital object links are added at the appropriate level of description in each finding aid.