Encoded Archival Description

Within the archival world it is becoming increasingly desireable to be able to search finding aids, such as collection registers, across collections. In 1993, a project initiated by the University of California, Berkeley, Library determined that SGML was the best way to accomplish this goal, and began developing the EAD (Encoded Archival Description) DTD.

With the promise of browsers that will read the native SGML coding, the Manuscripts Division at Mystic Seaport has begun encoding its collection registers in XML using the EAD format. While currently we are translating the XML coding to HTML, we are archiving the registers in the original XML as well so that they may be contributed to a larger utility for cross-collection and cross-institution searching.

View a collection register in XML (requires Acrobat Reader)
View the same collection register translated into HTML

last updated on 06/21/02