title: Nuts and bolts: implementing descriptive standards to enable virtual collections
abstract: To date, online archival information systems have relied heavily on legacy finding aids for data to encode and provide to end users, despite fairly strong indications in the archival literature that such legacy data is problematic even as a mediated access tool. Archivists have only just begun to study the utility of archival descriptive data for end users in unmediated settings such as via the Web. The ability of future archival information systems to respond to the expectations and needs of end users is inextricably linked to archivists getting their collective data house in order. The General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) offers the profession a place from which to start extricating ourselves from the idiosyncracies of our legacy data and description practices
keyphrases: descriptive standards virtual collections online archival information systems archival information systems end users archival literature legacy data mediated access tool archivists archival descriptive data collective data house General International Standard Archival Description ISAD Online Archive of California OAC