- About Archives
- About SAA
- Careers
- Education
- Publications
- Advocacy
- Membership
The Encoded Archival Standards Section has three upcoming open positions for the 2019 election: Junior Co-Chair and 2 Steering Committee Members. We have received one nomination for Junior Co-Chair and two nominations for the Steering Committee, and their details are below.
Our candidate for Junior Co-Chair is Betts Coup (Processing Archivist, Houghton Library, Harvard University).
Betts Coup is a Processing Archivist at Houghton Library and an Adjunct Professor at Simmons University, focusing on instruction of archival access, use, and description. At Houghton, Betts has been involved with the implementation of location and container management in ArchivesSpace and establishing new descriptive guidelines and workflows for oversized materials. Prior to this position, Betts was a project archivist at the Center for the History of Medicine, where she managed the implementation of EAC-CPF, creating templates, records, and training colleagues. She also assisted with the editing of processing guidelines and data cleanup following the implementation of ArchivesSpace. At Simmons University’s School of Library and Information Science, Betts teaches Archival Access and Use, which focuses on instruction of archival descriptive standards, including DACS, EAD, EAC-CPF, and MARC for archival collections. She has been active in New England Archivists, serving as an editor of that organization’s newsletter and as a non-voting member of the NEA Board. Betts has an MLIS with a focus on Archives Management from Simmons University and an MA in the History of Art and Architecture from New York University. In her final year at Simmons, Betts carried out an independent study which involved the creation of EAC-CPF guidelines and templates, as well as nearly 50 records, specifically related to the Boston Public Schools Desegregation Project at Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, and is currently training to be a SNAC editor. Betts has an ongoing interest in the way users find and access archival collections, specifically the way encoded, structured records for archival collections may create varied paths for discovery and use.
My work in the archival field has been focused on description, and I have a great passion for exploring the ways in which our descriptive practice—and the ways we structure that descriptive data—impact users and access. As someone who actively teaches about our current encoded standards, I know well that they can seem intimidating, but in fact help newcomers to the field understand the theories and foundations of our field. Simultaneously, I am excited to think about the ways our standards are changing to become more interoperable and our data both more discoverable and sharable. I am passionate about the way standardized, structured data will allow users to access archival materials from varied points of discovery through the various standards both in place and in development (EAD, EAC-CPF, among others). As EAS Junior Co-Chair, I would work to ensure that the EAS Section is both keeping in mind our history of developing and disseminating well-documented, clear standards, as well as developing and offering tools and resources to assist with the implementation of new and updated standards.
Our candidates for Steering Committee Member are Michele Combs (Lead Archivist at the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at Syracuse University Libraries) and Sue Luftschein (Head of Special Collections at the University of Southern California).
Michele is the Lead Archivist at the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at Syracuse University Libraries. She has more than 25 years experience with SGML/XML, beginning in 1994 when she became involved with creating, maintaining, and publishing SGML-encoded technical documentation for the U.S. Navy through positions at General Electric and then Lockheed Martin. Since joining SCRC in 2006, her responsibilities have included converting legacy paper and electronic finding aids to EAD; developing internal and vendor encoding specifications for EAD, METS, and MODS; training interns and new staff on how to write and encode finding aids; and writing a wide range of scripts to turn EAD into other things and other things into EAD. She has taught numerous workshops on EAD, and for the past ten years has taught a two-week hands-on unit to library school students as part of IST 628. She is a member of the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) and served on its earlier incarnation as the TS-EAD (Technical Subcommittee for EAD) during its work on EAD 3.0; as such, she as been a co-presenter at several webinars that provided information about the new features of 3.0. She is a member and past Board Member of the American Society of Indexers, and does freelance indexing in DocBook and other XML schemas.
I’m a strong believer in the power of structured data, having seen first-hand the many benefits that result. These range from consistency and flexibility in presentation, to wider discoverability through interoperability with other library systems and sharing with aggregators like ArchiveGrid and CDL, to the enormous potential for data exchange, linking, and repurposing (so many possibilities!). I would very much enjoy the opportunity to further the understanding, development, adoption, and use of encoding standards within the archival community.
Sue Luftschein is the Head of Special Collections at the University of Southern California. Prior to assuming this role, she served as the Archival and Metadata Librarian in Special Collections, where she oversaw all aspects of archival processing for the department, including the development and implementation of best practices for archival description. She oversaw USC’s migration from Archivists’ Toolkit to ArchivesSpace and has served on the Archives Space User Advisory Council (she has also conducted several workshops on how to use ArchivesSpace). She has recently begun working with linked open data and is exploring the applicability of Wikidata to archival discoverability. Sue was just appointed Co-Chair of TS-DACS; in her tenure on this committee, she has overseen the education efforts surrounding DACS, inicluding the development of an SAA Arrangement and Description series course on DACS Part II, Archival Authorities. Sue is a graduate of the MLIS program at UCLA and also holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the City University of New York Graduate Center. Prior to her arrival at USC, she worked as a Project Archivist at the Huntington Library, and in the Institutional Records and Archives Department of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
I have worked with structured metadata throughout my career as an archivist, and I have always been interested in exploring and maximizing the use of the structure standards that govern our work in order to provide better discovery experiences for our patrons. I have long been an advocate for the implementation of structured data in archival description—from implementing EAD at an institution that had never used it, to planning for a linked data implementation at my current institution. The use of standardized and interoperable systems allows patrons to discover materials more easily and also allows us to share our metadata more successfully. The EAS section is uniquely positioned to provide leadership and guidance for the members of the archival community that work with encoded standards, and I welcome the opportunity to lend my expertise to this work. I also look forward to being able to apply my experience with content standards to the work of the Encoded Archival Standards Section.