TS-EAS updates: EAC-CPF 2.0 draft and EAD usage feedback

We hope you have had a good start into the new year. The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) would like to kick-off 2021 with an update on some of our recent as well as upcoming activities.

Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF)
Since early 2019, TS-EAS has been working on a major revision of the EAC-CPF standard. This revision -- EAC-CPF 2.0 -- addresses bug reports and feature requests from the implementer community -- and also introduces structural changes to facilitate further alignment between EAC-CPF and Encoded Archival Description (EAD). As we shared previously, TS-EAS has developed a new set of design principles to guide our work moving forward. While these design principles are still open to minor adjustments and additions as we progress, they are actively guiding our work on the major revision.

We will be issuing a call for comments on the draft EAC-CPF 2.0 schema and tag library in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned and look out for more news on this soon.

Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
As of this year, we are initiating planning for a revision of EAD -- starting with an assessment phase. Both EAD and EAC-CPF are slated for ongoing review and major revision cycles (generally on a 3-5 year basis), and planning for the EAD revision was recently approved by the Society of American Archivists' (SAA) Standards Committee.

As an initial step, we would like to get a more general understanding of where the community currently stands in terms of EAD:

• If you can spare a few minutes, please complete this brief 3-question survey regarding your use of EAD by March 31: https://forms.gle/wCtzbu5YREzronYY9
• If your institution is currently implementing EAD3 (or is in the process of implementing it), please consider sharing your experience with us. We also invite you to share sample EAD3 files with us. We are especially interested in understanding if and how you are using the element <localcontrol> and the attribute @localtype. Please contact us at ts-eas@archivists.org

We will be in touch with additional details on EAD revision planning throughout the second and third quarter of 2021, including upcoming webinars.

Thanks very much in advance and best wishes,
Karin Bredenberg and Mark Custer
(TS-EAS co-chairs)