An introduction to the Archives Hub and information about creating archival descriptions for the online enviroment.

1. An introduction
Contributor Workshop 2013

2. 
JISC-funded service based at
Mimas, The University of Manchester

In service since 2000

Over 27,000 collection descriptions

Over 230 repositories

Management and service team at
Manchester

Development team at Liverpool

Software: Cheshire for Archives

3. 
Strategic aim: build and enhance content

Meeting the needs of the UK research
community

Meeting the needs of the wider community

Archives for education and research

Key aim to be comprehensive!

The success of the Hub is a reflection of the
rich content available from Hub
contributors

4. 
Higher/Further Education

Specialist repositories

Charities

Royal Institutions

Museums and Libraries

Business archives

Many small archives

Some local authorities

We encourage institutions to contact us
John Rylands Library, Manchester

5. Archives Hub homepage

6. 
Very flexible: collection-level through to
item-level

Software/searches effective with both

Complimentary approaches –
contributors can include summary and
detailed descriptions

Researchers ask for detail but also ask for
us to be comprehensive!

7. 




Google
Blog
Twitter
Key conferences and events
….better cataloguing means
better profile!

8. 






Archives Portal Europe (route to Europeana)
Genesis: exploratory project to share data
AIM25: collaboration to improve interoperability
TNA: links from the NRA and discussions about mutually
beneficial activities
UKAD: UK Archives Discovery Network
Archives Wales Project
Working with software providers, eg CALM/Adlib/KE/ICA
AtoM

9. 






Local search/retrieve setup
Very similar to the Hub interface
A lightweight approach using the Hub API
Template solution – minimal customisation of
design
Hosted at Mimas – easy to maintain
Hoping to go live early in 2014
Complex programming challenge!

10. 
The browser provides a human user interface

Machine interfaces provide ways for machines to interact
with the data

Enables more exposure and flexible access

The Hub has:
◦ SRU
◦ Z39.50
◦ OAI-PMH

11. 
EAD is XML for archives

We have EAD2002 (DTD)

Cheshire search engine searches and retrieves EAD
descriptions

EAD is ISAD(G) compliant

We use indexing standards and strongly encourage
contributors to add index terms

13. archiveshub.ac.uk/isadg

14. archiveshub.ac.uk/mandatoryfields

15. archiveshub.ac.uk/cataloguingtips

16. 
All Hub descriptions have
their own identifiers – a
unique reference

Gives them their own web
address

Enables bookmarking of
content

Facilitates linking, e.g. from
NRA

Enables exposure to Google
archiveshub.ac.uk/identifiers

17. Keyword search
Subject search
Subject browse

18. 


Hub takes your EAD
descriptions and displays
them using a stylesheet
We can modify the
stylesheet to display
different fields
EAD currently being revised
(new version due 2015) so
there may be some changes
- but minimal disruption!

19. archiveshub.ac.uk
archiveshub@mimas.ac.uk
archiveshub.ac.uk/blog
twitter.com/archiveshub