Learning Objective number 4:

Learn and apply descriptive practices in creation of EAD finding aids in accordance with Seattle Municipal Archives and Northwest Digital Archives standards and best practices.

EAD stands for Electronic Archival Description.

A Finding Aid is a document that gives pertinent information about a collection to help researchers find what they are looking for.

After reordering and refoldering a collection of documents relating to the Initative Petition system of the Seattle city government, I made a new finding aid for the collection. I wrote a historical note, giving the context of the collection, and a content description, giving dates, types of documents and subjects of the documents.

Then I input the historical and contents notes into the XML file (XML is a type of coding language), along with information about the creator of the collection, the size of the collection, and the preferred citation style. Finally, I added the folder list I had created as I was refoldering the collection. After the XML file was reviewed by archival staff, they posted it to the Northwest Digital Archives website. You can see my finding aid by clicking on the link below:

Initiatives Collection Finding Aid


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