Publications by the CDL and partner organizations and consultants, produced through collaborative projects and initiatives.
OCLC conducted a series of focus group interviews with archivists and archives administrators from across the United States to investigate the needs of archivists and others who might contribute to a national archival aggregator for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. This report details the methods and findings from those focus group interviews and examines the needs of archives and archivists related to describing the collections in their care and contributing description to an archival aggregation.
From 2020–2023, OCLC conducted research as a partner on Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN), an IMLS-supported research and demonstration project to build the foundation for a national archival finding aid network to address the inconsistency and inequity of the current archival discovery landscape (LG-246349-OLS-20). The project was led by California Digital Library (CDL), with partners at OCLC, the University of Virginia Library, Shift Collective, and Chain Bridge Group.
This report summarizes the findings from a national survey of more than 3300 end users searching for archival materials online for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. The survey captures data about search behavior and information needs along with demographic characteristics from a cross section of online users.
This report details the methods and findings from a quantitative analysis of a corpus of EAD encoded collection descriptions provided by current regional finding aid aggregators in the US. The analysis sought to assess current EAD data as raw material for building a finding aid aggregation by looking for common elements and data structures present in the data and probing for gaps that could impede user discovery of archival collections.
This report details methods and summarizes findings from semi-structured individual interviews with end users of archival aggregation for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. It focuses on their information needs and information seeking behavior related to searching and accessing primary source material, and their interactions with archival aggregators.
From 2020–2023, OCLC conducted research as a partner on Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN), an IMLS-supported research and demonstration project to build the foundation for a national archival finding aid network to address the inconsistency and inequity of the current archival discovery landscape (LG-246349-OLS-20). The project was led by California Digital Library (CDL), with partners at OCLC, the University of Virginia Library, Shift Collective, and Chain Bridge Group
This report contextualizes and synthesizes the findings from across all OCLC’s research activities on the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant, with a focus on how findings relate to future phases of work on the NAFAN project. The findings indicate that there is significant value to be drawn from a national aggregation of archival description. They also identify challenges that must be overcome to build the community of participation that a national finding aid aggregation will require to be sustainable.
This report summarizes input from participants in the "Increasing Discovery of Archives" workshop hosted by Shift Collective on December 14 and 15, 2021. It is intended to help inform the research and development phase of the National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) project led by the California Digital Library (CDL).
This action plan is a key deliverable of "Toward a National Finding Aid Network," a one-year planning initiative supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered in California by the State Librarian. 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.
This report represents the first phase of "Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network," a one-year planning initiative supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered in California by the State Librarian. The report describes 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.
