Archival MARC Records and Finding Aids in the Context of End-User Subject Access to Archival Collections

Abstract

This article discusses the findings of a study to determine the extent to which archival MARC records represent chronological, geographical, personal, and corporate information contained in corresponding finding aids to archival collections. A content analysis of twenty finding aids to archival collections and their corresponding archival MARC records was conducted. The data suggest that the level of representation in archival MARC records varies depending on subject category. Geographical terms were the most likely to be represented, followed by personal names, chronological terms, and lastly corporate names. Allowing for the searching of full-text electronic finding aids would enable end users to benefit not only from the subject information present at the collection level and in the abstract, but also from the areas in finding aids that tend to get less MARC representation: scope/content notes, historical/biographical information, series summaries, and container information.

Historians' use of digital archival collections: The web, historical scholarship, and archival research

“…Some researchers analyze the ease of use and challenges of archival information systems, such as finding aids, MARC, EAD, and access systems. As archival systems have incorporated advanced technologies and newer standards, researchers have delved more into the users' understanding and usage of such systems; the usability of a system, its functionalities, the effectiveness of its searching and retrieval functions, the learning curves faced by its users, and users' willingness to accept a system are a few of the topics that have emerged although the subjects of these studies have not always been historians (Altman & Nemmers, ; Czeck, ; Daniels & Yakel, ; Meissner, ; Prom, ; Scheir, ; Spindler & Pearce‐Moses, ; Yakel, ). The findability of archival materials on the web has been increasingly of interest to researchers as the web has become an important venue for information seeking (Feeney, ; Tibbo & Meho, ).…”

Users and Search in Archival Databases

“…Kot ugotavljata , se je število študij, ki se nanašajo na online dostopna arhivska informativna pomagala močno povečalo (czeck, 1998;kim, 2004;Yakel, 2004;Altman in nemmers, 2004;scheir, 2005;zhou, 2006), razdelimo pa jih lahko na dve skupini. V prvo skupino sodijo študije, ki se ukvarjajo z uporabniškimi vmesniki in funkcionalnostmi arhivskih informativnih pomagal in ki so bile izvedene z analizo vsebine uporabniških vmesnikov, v drugo pa spadajo dejanske analize uporabnosti.…”