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MARC was developed in the 1960s to produce machine-readable catalog records, mainly for books. These records resemble traditional card catalog records and are searchable by field. Over time, MARC has become one of the most popular cataloging tools for librarians, and has been adopted by archivists as well. For those who catalog archival materials, MARC has limited but important uses. Creating catalog records for collections aids researchers in locating materials they might not otherwise find, so it serves as a key component of providing access to a repositorys collections.
Although MARC is a fantastic tool for letting researchers knows that a collection of materials exists, it is limited to a brief description at the collection level. Thus, EAD was developed to allow archivists to produce electronic finding aids for collections, much like those traditionally used in repositories, to enhance patron access to information about collections. A link to the EAD finding aid may easily be placed in the catalog record for a given collection so researchers can find out more about the materials in that collection as UNC has done with the Floyd B. McKissck Papers and the Maurice Kurtz papers.
There are several obvious differences between MARC records and EAD finding aids stemming from the requirement of brevity in MARC and the need for more extensive information that is expressed in an EAD finding aid. For example, the catalog record for the McKissick papers is easily located by title, keyword, or other search. The MARC record includes the title of the collection, the author, the call number, a description of the extent, a note that says it is part of the southern historical collection, a brief biographical note, a very brief summary which is an abbreviated version of the scope/content note, and a mention that some is on microfilm. It also indicates the collection was a gift and the year received, as well as listing subject headings and the world cat number. If this is insufficient, and it probably is, the researcher can easily follow a link to get more information from the finding aid.
The finding aid contains much of the same information that is found in the MARC record, but is a great deal more extensive. One example is that rather than simply saying some of the materials are available on microfilm, the EAD finding aid provides a careful list of those materials and an overview of their contents. In place of the “gift/year” format of the MARC record, the EAD finding aid has the flexibility to explain who the collection was acquired from, when, and what other conditions are. Likewise, rather than a short summary of the contents of the collection, the EAD finding aid has more thorough context notes and a detailed description of the collection and its contents. Another example of greater detail may be found in the information about the creator. While the MARC record contains a brief note about the author, the finding aid has a four paragraph biographical note.
The description of the collection is the most obvious difference. The MARC record is