Section+1+EAD,+etc

=Section 2=

Section 2 will discuss MARC AMC, the format used for the Vatican Archives project, as well as a description and evaluation of newer standards which have emerged since the project's completion. MARC, Machine-Readable Cataloging, emerged as the bibliographic standard for libraries in the 1960s; although it has been updated throughout the years, it continues to function effectively as the library profession's primary cataloging tool. MARC records provide a standard format for describing information items and are easily shared by computer-based catalog systems, enhancing user access tremendously. For these reasons, the archival community became interested in the MARC format in the 1980s, ultimately adapting the standard for use with archival collections and creating the MARC Format for Archival and Manuscripts Control (MARC AMC).

MARC AMC was the first administrative and descriptive standard employed by the archival profession. Prior to its adoption, archivists had claimed that archival materials could not utilize standards because of their unique and diverse nature. An overview of MARC AMC will be included, as well as a discussion regarding its implementation into existing archival processes. The benefits and challenges of using this format will also be considered. The use of MARC AMC in archives allows for the uniform description of information packages as well as the inclusion of these descriptions in union catalogs like RLIN, which in turn makes possible the broad dissemination of archival collection information. However, the use of MARC AMC for archival materials still presents problems for the archival field. MARC favors the high-level descriptions of archival collections or record groups but does not easily permit additional levels of description which are most useful to archives users. Additionally, certain key features of archival finding aids, like scope and content notes and series descriptions, do not translate easily to MARC.

In the late 1990s, archival professionals developed Encoded Archival Description (EAD), which again revolutionized archival practices and the discovery of archival resources, particularly in an online environment. An overview of EAD, its utility in the archival field, and its relationship to other standards will be provided. Although defined as a document type definition and not a descriptive standard, EAD was created to work in conjunction with other other national and international descriptive standards and itself can be viewed as a descriptive standard by encouraging the use of common data content.

The first section will conclude with a discussion of MARC AMC in the twenty-first century and will attempt to address the following questions: is MARC AMC still relevant to archival description, or has EAD effectively replaced MARC AMC? Can the two standards be used in conjunction with each other?