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Paul Daybell, Andrea Payant, Liz Elizabeth Woolcott, Becky Skeen, Anna-Maria Marie Arnljots & Kurt Meyer (Accepted2022) A Tale of Two Levels: Analyzing the Discoverability and Impact of Item-Level Description in EAD Finding Aids, Journal of Archival Organization (Accepted for publication), DOI: 10.1080/15332748.2022.2089321
Abstract: As part of a multi-faceted research project examining user engagement with various types of descriptive metadata, Utah State University LibrariesCataloging Libraries Cataloging and Metadata Services unit (CMS) investigated the discoverability of local Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids. The research team put two versions of the same finding aid online with one described at the file (box or folder) level and the other at the item-level. Over a year later, the team pulled the analytics for each guide and assessed which descriptive level was most frequently accessed. The research team also looked at the type of search terms patrons utilized and wherein the findingaidthey where in the finding aid they were located. Usage data shows that personal names are the most common type of search term, search terms are most commonly found in the Collection Inventory, and that the availability of item-level description improves discovery by an average of 6,100% over file-level descriptions.
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