In the creation of an encoded finding aid, we separate the description phase from the encoding technique. This allows us to focus on the quality of the archival material in all its aspects, without being hindered by any encoding.

Separating description from encoding

This separation allows us to concentrate first on the descriptive content of the document:

• Do all the units in the analytical description or the container list have a title?
• Are the dates of creation of each unit recorded in a uniform, consistent form?
• Are the scope and content, the administrative history and the custodial history elements well delineated, or are they mixed together into a single paragraph?

After analyzing the source document, and if the need exists, we will be able to propose to our client an improved version, in which the various information areas are structured according to standards.

Multi level description support: unlimited

The hierarchical nature of archival descriptions is fully supported in our system. Any number of levels of description in a finding aid would be properly nested and encoded.

Authority control

If a finding aid contains many proper names, and if many of these names appear repeatedly throughout the document, names authority control becomes an essential requirement and a major contributor to the overall quality of the final product. Effective authority control of computerized documents means separation of authority data - the proper names - from the body of the documents, support for normal form and variant forms or synonyms, and recording of a name only once, in a separate authority file. At ArchProteus, the separation of the description phase from the encoding gives us the additional advantage of being able to implement complete authority control as part of the description process. Our unique tools allow us to extract proper names from the body of finding aids, store them in a separate file with no redundancy, identify and eliminate duplicates, misspellings and inaccuracies and ensure that only the desired form of a name is consistently used throughout the material.

Indexes generated by computer

Adding an index to an encoded finding aid is optional. If one or several indexes are needed (for example a personal names index and a separate, corporate/organization names index), then the authority control method described in the previous paragraph has another advantage: it gives us the ability to create these indexes automatically, including all the cross-reference hyperlinks from index entries to the places in the body of the finding aid where those entries appear. The absence of any manual typing in the creation of indexes ensures a high level of accuracy and consistency.

Beyond spelling verification: foreign language expertise

At ArchProteus, quality control of the content of a document is not limited to making sure that all the words are correctly spelled. Many finding aids contain valuable information printed in foreign languages: titles of works, names of people and conferences, geographic places. We have the expertise to detect and correct errors in spelling or wording in virtually all European languages. In particular, we make sure that all accented characters do appear correctly where needed.

Encoding: last step performed by a computer program

In our system, the archival material is first structured according to standards, described and verified. The structuring, that is the delineation of the archival data elements (title, dates, administrative history, scope and content, etc.), and the identification of the levels of description and their links to higher levels, form the basis of our method. This allows us to delegate to a computer program the execution of the final step in the creation of an encoded finding aid: the encoding itself. For an EAD-encoded finding aid, wrapping around data elements the corresponding EAD tags can be done very easily by a computer, with the advantage of an error-free final product. Another computer program would produce the HTML version of the finding aid, from the same, unchanged, source data. And if all or part of the archival material needs to be exported in MARC format, yet another interface program will create the MARC file.

Quality of final products

The separation of the description from the encoding and the use of highly automated tools allow us to implement true authority control, to automatically generate indexes, and to minimize manual manipulation of the material. In addition, the completely automatic encoding is not only fast, but results in error-free output. All this leads to final products of the highest quality.

The advanced tools used at ArchProteus to perform conversions and encoding result in short delivery time frames and very attractive costs.

The effort and cost of conversions depend on many factors:

• medium of the source document (paper, word processor, scanned page images, MARC files, database)
• size
• format and quality of the description
• need for content re-structuring prior to encoding
• degree of authority control required
• need for index(es)

It is impossible to accurately quote a conversion price without knowing the client's objectives and without seeing the source documents.

The overall cost of the conversion can be surprisingly low, if the finding aid is in word processor form, and if its format is consistent throughout, in tabular or quasi-tabular style, and if the data elements (title, dates, notes, scope & content, box number) are well delineated and presented always in the same order. The ease of extracting the names from the document would determine the additional cost of building indexes.

Contact us for a cost estimate of your conversion work.