Revision of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) – Call for Comments
Mark A. Matienzo
In February this year the Society of American Archivists charged a new
subcommittee of the Standards Committee, the Technical Subcommittee
for Encoded Archival Description (TS-EAD), to undertake a revision of
the standard within a period of 5 years.
To ensure the greatest possible input from EAD users around the world,
the subcommittee has an extensive international membership and is
calling for proposed changes to the current version, EAD 2002. The
deadline for change proposals is 28 February 2011.
The timetable for this revision process is as follows – NB this is an
indicative timetable and may be subject to change.
30 September 2010: Call for comments
28 February 2011: Deadline for comments
August 2011: Forum for discussion at SAA Annual Meeting
Spring 2012: Working meeting of TS-EAD (subject to funding)
December 2012: Release of draft schema for testing and comment
August 2013: Publish revised version at SAA Annual Meeting
In completing the revision process the subcommittee will take note of
the Design Principles for Enhancements to EAD published at the time of
the last revision. The subcommittee will take account also of the
global success of EAD and current implementation practice. It will
endeavour to encourage continued adoption of EAD as a tool for the
online dissemination of archival information by ensuring that EAD is
as economical and straightforward as possible to implement and use.
To propose changes, please fill out the form at
http://www.archivists.org/standards/ead/eadRevisions.asp. Please fill
in a separate form for each change suggested, with a brief description
and the rationale for the proposed change. Comments may also be sent
by e-mail to ts-...@archivists.org and should include the information
in the form.
To ensure that the revision process is as open as possible, all
comments must be attributable to named individuals and affiliated
organisations where appropriate. Anonymous responses will not be
considered. All change proposals will be made publicly available, with
attribution, in a forum to be determined. E-mail addresses are asked
for so that we may contact respondents for clarification, but will not
be shared.
Michael Rush (Yale University)
Bill Stockting (British Library)
Co-chairs, TS-EAD