The Endangerment of Trees: A Provacative Analysis of Online Archival Finding Aids

Author(s): Light, Michelle | Abstract: The author contemplates the future of the archival finding aid on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Encoded Archival Description, a standard for encoding archival finding aids for use in an online environment. The author posits that standards for multi-level, hierarchical description in archival finding aids may conflict with how web search engines index finding aids as well as the requirements for describing digital-born materials of the future.