Versions Compared

Version Old Version 29 New Version Current
Changes made by

Adrian Turner

Adrian Turner

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.


Panel
titleColor#FFFFFF
titleBGColor#98AFC7
title2020-2023 Reports and Resources


Final report

Building a National Finding Aid Network: Final Report

This report is a key deliverable from the NAFAN research project, outlining a plan for building and launching a comprehensive national finding aid network over a 4-5 year horizon that is community-driven, -sustained, and -governed.

Research findings

Research Findings Reports

OCLC publishedfive reports comprising the complete set of research findings:  

  • Summary of Research—Synthesizes findings from across all research activities on the NAFAN project
  • Pop-up Survey—Summarizes results from a national survey of online archive users on their search behavior, information needs, and demographic characteristics
  • User Interviews—Details findings from interviews with archival aggregation end users on their information needs and information-seeking behavior 
  • Focus Group Interviews—Shares outcomes from focus group discussions with archivists to examine their needs for describing collections and contributing description to an archival aggregation 
  • EAD Analysis—Analyzes EAD data as raw material for building a finding aid aggregation by looking for common data structures present and probing for gaps that could impede user discovery  

EAD Data Dashboard and Quantitative Data Analysis Projects

This dashboard provides a summary of finding aid data, represented within US-based regional/state finding aid aggregations as of November 2020-January 2021. 

Community workshop findings

Shift Collective (2022) “Increasing Discovery of Archives: A Project to Provide Better Pathways to Archival Records in Cultural Heritage Collections" 

Shift Collective staged a two-day workshop in December 2021, “Increasing National Discovery of Archives,” inviting the input of people whose work is centered on community-based cultural memory projects, to inform NAFAN’S development and implementation of a national network of archival descriptions. The workshop also aimed to identify ways that NAFAN might offer services, support, and advocacy to community-based archives, or might help meet the needs of researchers to better discover and access those collections. This report summarizes input from participants who attended the workshop. 



Panel
titleColor#FFFFFF
titleBGColor#98AFC7
title2018-2019 Background Reports and Resources

Finding Aid Aggregation at a Crossroads (May 2019)

This report represents the first phase of the 2018-19 "Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network" planning initiative. Here, we are developing a collective understanding of the current landscape of archival description -- and in particular, finding aid aggregations -- as background for an exploration of how best to provide access to archival collections, ensure the long-term sustainability of that access, and plan for future developments in this space.

Symposium summary (June 2019)

This document summarizes key discussion points and outcomes from a 1-day planning symposium, hosted by the University of California Riverside Library.

Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network - From Planning Initiative to Project and Program: An Action Plan (October 2019)

This action plan is a key deliverable of the "Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network" planning initiative, drawing directly on the symposium outcomes. The plan was prepared by a Task Force comprising representatives from the Core Partner group of aggregators, who contributed time between July-September 2019 to formulate and develop these recommendations. At the heart of the action plan are recommendations for and principles to guide next steps to implement a national-level finding aid network. The Task Force recommends a phased, incremental approach that moves this effort from a research and demonstration project to a program; is informed by a research agenda; and (from the beginning) includes work to establish business and governance models that fit the infrastructure and service model.

Additional Reference Resources

The following materials comprise working documents:

Image Removed