Comments on: Susa 2.0: Max Evans’ Finding Aid Prototype http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/ Archives, Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage, Technology Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:10:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Usable finding aid web interfaces « Touchable Archives http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/comment-page-1/#comment-9367 Usable finding aid web interfaces « Touchable Archives Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:43:24 +0000 http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/#comment-9367 [...] use EAD, but already I find myself questioning it. Jeanne over at Spellbound Blog talked about the possibilities of simpler EAD finding aids in 2008, through the Utah State Historical Society’s next-generation version of the Susa [...] [...] use EAD, but already I find myself questioning it. Jeanne over at Spellbound Blog talked about the possibilities of simpler EAD finding aids in 2008, through the Utah State Historical Society’s next-generation version of the Susa [...]

]]> By: Lea Osborne http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/comment-page-1/#comment-9301 Lea Osborne Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:07:25 +0000 http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/#comment-9301 Have you done any assessment with users concerning this finding aid? I'm at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University and we were shocked by some of the responses of our focus groups when we showed them our new EAD finding aids. What we had imagined to be of utmost importance was not and vice-versa. We incorporated many changes in our first roll-out and will continue to do so in the second phase. Lea Osborne Processing Archivist Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University lo2176@columbia.edu Have you done any assessment with users concerning this finding aid? I’m at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University and we were shocked by some of the responses of our focus groups when we showed them our new EAD finding aids. What we had imagined to be of utmost importance was not and vice-versa. We incorporated many changes in our first roll-out and will continue to do so in the second phase.

Lea Osborne
Processing Archivist
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University
lo2176@columbia.edu

]]> By: Barbara Aikens http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/comment-page-1/#comment-9164 Barbara Aikens Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:41:42 +0000 http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/#comment-9164 It seems that many of us are beginning to think this way! For the last 2 years, we've been repurposing our EAD finding aids to serve as the metadata AND the primary online navigational tool for fully digitized collections. We recently did a major overhaul of the online presentation of the rest of our EAD finding aids as well. I just posted this to the EAD listserv this week and have received a lot of very positive feedback. We have more changes in the works as well, where users will be able to link to selected digital images from the front page of the finding aid, rather than drilling down to a link embedded within. (This is for finding aids for collections that we have not fully digitized, which, of course is the majority!) We're trying to bring the two interfaces (Collections Online and the EAD findign aids) closer in both look and functionality. What is also exciting about our project is how we've managed to integrate large scale digitization into the archival workflow of processing and description. Max gave us some valuable and much appreciated feedback on the Collections Online interface last year. There is an old comment on this blog from 2006 when we first started the project and presented at SAA, and the user was somewhat confused because she ran across an old version of digitized microfilm. The Collections Online site is much more polished and fully functional now - take a look. We now have digitized 65 collections and welcome all feedback! Check it out at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/ and to see collections digitized in their entirety, see http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/ Barbara Aikens Chief of Collections Processing Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution aikensb@si.edu It seems that many of us are beginning to think this way! For the last 2 years, we’ve been repurposing our EAD finding aids to serve as the metadata AND the primary online navigational tool for fully digitized collections. We recently did a major overhaul of the online presentation of the rest of our EAD finding aids as well. I just posted this to the EAD listserv this week and have received a lot of very positive feedback. We have more changes in the works as well, where users will be able to link to selected digital images from the front page of the finding aid, rather than drilling down to a link embedded within. (This is for finding aids for collections that we have not fully digitized, which, of course is the majority!) We’re trying to bring the two interfaces (Collections Online and the EAD findign aids) closer in both look and functionality.

What is also exciting about our project is how we’ve managed to integrate large scale digitization into the archival workflow of processing and description.

Max gave us some valuable and much appreciated feedback on the Collections Online interface last year.

There is an old comment on this blog from 2006 when we first started the project and presented at SAA, and the user was somewhat confused because she ran across an old version of digitized microfilm. The Collections Online site is much more polished and fully functional now – take a look. We now have digitized 65 collections and welcome all feedback!

Check it out at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/

and to see collections digitized in their entirety, see

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/

Barbara Aikens
Chief of Collections Processing
Archives of American Art
Smithsonian Institution
aikensb@si.edu

]]> By: Dharma http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/comment-page-1/#comment-9080 Dharma Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:32:26 +0000 http://www.spellboundblog.com/2008/12/08/susa-20-max-evans-finding-aid-prototype/#comment-9080 Hi there, I attended your session in August and really enjoyed it, esp. the invovis talk. I think it's wonderful that people are thinking about how to retool the finding aid. I was just recently the project manager and archivist on a digitization project at the University of Michigan. Most of our efforts were put to copyright issues, but we also designed a different type of view for finding aid data. Shhhh, we don't even call it a finding aid.http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cohenaids/browse.html. There are a lot of resources that still need to be digitized and put in the collection, which is why this is beta. Anyway, just wanted to share. Hi there,

I attended your session in August and really enjoyed it, esp. the invovis talk. I think it’s wonderful that people are thinking about how to retool the finding aid. I was just recently the project manager and archivist on a digitization project at the University of Michigan. Most of our efforts were put to copyright issues, but we also designed a different type of view for finding aid data. Shhhh, we don’t even call it a finding aid.http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cohenaids/browse.html.
There are a lot of resources that still need to be digitized and put in the collection, which is why this is beta. Anyway, just wanted to share.

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