Friday Forums - Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)
Presented in conjunction with the Society of American Archivists
June 25, 2010 - 8:30am - 5:00pm
Description:
Want practical strategies for implementing DACS? This is the introductory workshop for you!
Get an in-depth, practical consideration of the key concepts and descriptive elements in Describing Archives: A Content Standard , the U.S. standard. Explore strategies for incorporating this standard into workflows for accessioning, arrangement, and description through discussions and hands-on work with a variety of exercises, culminating in a DACS-based analysis of existing finding aids. This workshop, a basic introduction to the standard, focuses on application of DACS rules and concepts, which participants can apply to repository processes and descriptive outputs.
Upon completion of this workshop you'll be able to:
- Apply the rules to formulate the content of descriptive elements for a minimal standardized description;
- Understand the different application of DACS in single- and multi-level descriptive outputs;
- Integrate DACS into basic repository processes such as accessioning, arrangement, and description;
- Articulate how integration of a content standard into basic repository processes facilitates reuse of information in a variety of outputs.
*Workshop fee includes the SAA publication, Describing Archives: A Content Standard (a $35 value!).
Who should attend? Anyone whose work includes accessioning, arranging and describing, or supervising employees who do that work.
Testimonials
When participants were asked "what aspect of the workshop methods/materials was most valuable to you?" responses included:
- "Group work and accompanying discussion. All of the feedback was very educational. The entire presentation was clear, even-paced, and informative." * Peter K. Steinberg
- "Everyone should take this - it's a good how-to-write-finding-aids workshop, so it does double-duty!" - Judy Farrar
- "Application of rules to practice. Hands-on activities (exercises)." * Betsy Pittman
- "Identity elements - especially title, wil make me rethink how I will supply titles in the future." * Burton Altman
- "Clarification of what DACS is and is not; emphasis on elements rather than name formation; demonstration of output options; exercises were very helpful." * Melissa Watterworth
Archival Recertification Credits-ARCs: 5
General CEU Credits: 0.75
Attendance limited to 40.
Instructor:
Bill Landis is the Head of Special Collections Research and Instructional Services at the Louis Round Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously he served as Head of Arrangement and Description & Metadata Coordinator in Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library; as Metadata Coordinator for the California Digital Library; as Manuscripts Librarian in Special Collections and Archives at the University of California, Irvine; and as the first Production Coordinator for JSTOR, a large-scale scholarly journal digitization project. He earned a BA degree in History from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an MILS from the University of Michigan, and is sporadically working toward an MA in History, focusing on the U.S. West.
Bill has been involved in the development and implementation of archival description standards since he "caught the bug" during the residency of Daniel Pitti's EAD development group at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, during the summer of 1995. His more recent interests have turned towards outreach and instruction in academic special collections, especially engaging undergraduates with the thrills of using archival sources in their research.
He served from 1997 to 2003 as a member of SAA's Encoded Archival Description Working Group, contributing to the production of both versions of the EAD Tag Library and the EAD Application Guidelines, Version 1.0. More recently, he served for three years as a member of the U.S. contingent of the Canadian-U.S. Taskforce on Archival Description (CUSTARD) and contributed to the new U.S. standard emerging from the work of that group, Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS).
He has published articles, given presentations, and taught classes and workshops on the subjects of archival description and associated standards, user and usability issues, and archival information access systems. When not up to his ears in description and metadata issues Bill likes to hike, especially when he can get back to California and disappear into the Sierra Nevada mountains. He has been known to spend hours debating issues relating to EAD and archival description in fairly remote venues, and the oxygen deprivation that accompanies hiking above 10,000 feet hasn't managed to dampen his enthusiasm for these topics.
Bill has served SAA in a variety of capacities as chair of the Technical Subcommittee on Descriptive Standards (TSDS), 1998-1999; chair of the Description Section, 2000-2001; member of the Nominating Committee, 2000-2001; member of the Program Committee, 2000-2001; co-chair of the Birmingham annual meeting Program Committee, 2001-2002; member of two Continuing Education Task Forces, 1999-2000 and 2002-2003; member of the Los Angeles annual meeting Host Committee, 2002-2003; member of the Theodore Calvin Pease Award committee, 2003-2005; co-chair of the Committee on Education, 2003-2005; and currently as a member of the American Archivist Editorial Board and chair of the newly formed DACS Working Group. Bill is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.
