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The Encoded Archival Standards Section has two upcoming open positions for the 2020 election: Junior Co-Chair and Steering Committee Member. We have received one nomination for Junior Co-Chair and one nomination for the Steering Committee, and their details are below.
Our candidate for Junior Co-Chair is Bo Doub (Archival Projects Librarian, University of Southern California Libraries)
I currently work as the Archival Projects Librarian in the Special Collections unit of the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries. My work responsibilities at USC include accessioning and processing archival collections, converting archival description into MARC and EAD for inclusion in WorldCat and the Online Archive of California, and using Python scripts and the ArchivesSpace API to efficiently extract archival data and batch-update records. Prior to USC, I processed collections at the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and the Computer History Museum under two different grant-funded projects.
I have worked with various encoding standards and structured metadata from the beginning of my career in libraries and archives. While finishing my MLIS and working at UCLA’s Center for Oral History Research as a graduate student, I wrote my master’s thesis on using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) XML standard to improve access to online oral history transcripts. During my subsequent work as an archivist, I have worked with EAD to batch-edit data in large finding aids and to publish archival description to the Online Archive of California.
If elected as EAS co-chair, I would look forward to utilizing the data from the Encoded Archival Standards Section survey that EAS conducted in 2019-2020. One of my goals as co-chair would be to translate the patterns in the survey’s responses into meaningful education and support initiatives for EAS members. I also intend to help further the goals of the 2018-2019 IMLS-funded initiative, "Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network" (NAFAN), using encoded archival standards to “realize a fully established network that supports a broad spectrum of contributors and provides transformative access for end-users” (NAFAN Action Plan, 5). Regardless of my position within the EAS section, I look forward to expanding my involvement and participation in the encoded archival standards community.
Our candidate for Steering Committee Member is Madison Chartier (Metadata Librarian, Oklahoma State University)
I am the Metadata Librarian for Edmon Low Library’s Digital Resources and Discovery Services at Oklahoma State University (OSU). I achieved my Master’s in Library Science degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 2018, with a concentration in archives and records management. As Metadata Librarian, I develop metadata application profiles and review all metadata for OSU’s born-digital and digitized collections. I manage a student metadata team and train student employees, faculty, and staff on fundamental metadata practices and project-specific metadata needs. In addition to metadata training, I assess, propose, and implement intra- and interdepartmental workflows to facilitate more effective, accurate metadata creation. My insights into metadata needs and archival processing procedures were influential in recent departmental restructuring to improve metadata creation, review, and feedback. I am going into my second year as a faculty member of OSU Library’s team.
In addition to my responsibilities as OSU Library faculty, I am an active member of the Digital Library Federation Assessment Interest Group Metadata Working Group (DLF AIG MWG). I am serving as a co-facilitator for this year’s DLF AIG MWG, which recently saw the publication of a white paper analyzing survey response data concerning institutions’ awareness and establishment of metadata quality benchmarks. The group is currently exploring a new project to initiate widespread community dialogues about metadata departments’ practices and adaptations with the COVID-19 pandemic. I also volunteer as a Carpentries instructor, leading workshops on data cleaning with OpenRefine and facilitating sessions on Python. I was a member of the American Library Association and the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services. I am currently a member of the Mountain Plains Library Association and the Oklahoma Library Association.
Encoded archival description is a necessary, advantageous opportunity to enhance resource discoverability. Libraries, archives, and special collections promote the variety and wealth of their resources through the application of traditional descriptive standards to the digital environment, using encoding standards and supportive metadata schemas. Many institutions are still in the early stages of defining and implementing metadata and digital descriptive practices. Library science programs are still developing curricula to facilitate such training and expertise. While archival descriptive standards may be familiar to most professionals, encoding skills and an understanding of metadata must often be learned on the job. Many archivists and digital librarians find themselves researching and working with metadata and encoded archival standards to incorporate new digital practices into traditional analog processing workflows. The need for metadata and encoded archival standards has consequentially transformed archival processing and digitization into interconnected functions dependent on each other. While the work involved in these stages of collection development often requires that they be delegated to separate departments, a close, communicative collaboration proves increasingly integral to facilitate successful, accurate creation of standard-compliant metadata for digitization projects.
I am an early-career metadata professional. I develop and advise on metadata practices, but my initial training was in archives and records management, including encoded archival description. I find myself often considering archival processing procedures and description standards when developing metadata workflows for digitization projects. In the past year, I have worked to establish closer collaborative partnerships between OSU Library’s Archives, Scanning Services, Oral History, and Metadata departments. Each department oversees processing of certain designated collections, and each department must create their own metadata for those assigned collections. The process of consulting, developing description guidelines compliant with standards, and providing feedback on metadata has informed me of a greater need to facilitate training in metadata and archival description standards more broadly. Metadata and archival description are so pervasive in modern library practice that knowledge and working experience with them can no longer be reserved to an exclusive group of professionals. All library departments responsible for collecting, describing, publishing, and maintaining records need exposure to metadata and descriptive standard fundamentals. Opportunities to pursue such knowledge and training need to be created, encouraged, and shared. As a community within the Society of American Archivists, and with ambitions toward outreach and education, I feel the Encoded Archival Standards Section could be the perfect forum to initiate discussions on how to implement and facilitate metadata and encoded archival description training amongst a broader group of information professionals. EAS has potential to serve as an intersection between a wide array of professionals with diverse skill and experience. As a member of the EAS Steering Committee, I hope to participate in productive dialogues and to bring valuable insights and questions to the table. I look forward to collaborating with fellow metadata and archival professionals in exploring, developing, and improving metadata descriptive practices adherent to standards and their application to long-standing archival procedures.