Open Access'Major Technological Challenge'
Author(s) -
Magnus Berg
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
emerging library and information perspectives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2561-7095
DOI - 10.5206/elip.v4i1.12529
Subject(s) - archivist , computer science , world wide web , context (archaeology) , archival science , inclusion (mineral) , information retrieval , library science , history , archaeology , sociology , gender studies
While archival description has been standardized in North America since the 1990s, the online environment has introduced new challenges in preserving the hierarchical nature of archival description. Many archival databases, in an attempt to mimic library discovery layers and web search engines, have collapsed the archival aggregation into item-level records, which can erase the context and structure of the content described. This article examines the communication breakdown that happens between the archivist and end user via online archival description and proposes solutions to improve multi-level description including the use of predicates in links, increased online instructional support, and the inclusion of digitized assets in archival description databases.