Steps to submitting EAD finding aids:

Prepare your EAD files

Below are instructions for submitting EAD finding aids. 

Note that you can also attach supplemental PDF files to your EAD collection guides, in cases where you have longer collection inventories and other descriptive information that is not encoded in EAD. For more information...

EAD Requirements

Please check your EAD encoding to ensure that it meets the following requirements

  • Be well-formed XML
  • Successfully validate against the EAD Version 2002 Document Type Definition or EAD 2002 Schema. The Schema is available in two syntaxes: Relax NG Schema (RNG) and W3C Schema (XSD). Please use the EAD Validator, supported by the Society of American Archivists, to check for errors. (Choose "EAD 2002" as the schema in the dropdown).
  • Includes a <unittitle> and <unitid> within the high-level description (/ead/archdesc)
  • Must not contain <c0#> Components with the LEVEL attribute set to "collection"

For general EAD encoding recommendations, please see our OAC Best Practice Guidelines for EAD (OAC BPG EAD). 

Exporting EAD Files from Archival Collection Management Systems

If you're using one of these collection management tools to aid in description and create EAD finding aids, please consult the relevant user guide to prepare your EAD files and ensure they align with our guidelines

Naming your EAD Files

When naming your EAD files, we recommend using the following conventions:

  • Include a ".xml" file format extension.
  • Only include lowercase letters and numbers, underscores, or dashes.
  • Do not include spaces
  • Only use a period for the file extension. Do not include punctuation at the end of the file name.

Upload, Preview, and Publish Your EAD Files

You can upload, preview, and publish EAD files on a "self-serve" basis through the OAC Dashboard. The lifecycle for publishing includes three general steps: 1) uploading an EAD file, 2) previewing the results, and 3) publishing the file. 

Submit a new EAD file

  • Navigate to "Manage Collection Guides" -> "Submit a new EAD file."
  • Use the Browse button to select and upload your EAD file.
  • If there are any XML or EAD validation errors, the Dashboard will report them with line numbers.
  • If there are no errors with the file, the OAC Dashboard will process the file for subsequent previewing; this may take several minutes -- refresh the browser page to see the View Preview button once the processing has completed, and click the link to see a version of the collection guide in the OAC website. (The guide will not be indexed or searchable within the live OAC website, but displayed for previewing purposes only).
    • While the file is in the preview state, you can continuously revise and preview the updated results; click the Update EAD button and upload the revised EAD file.
  • If you'd like to publish the file to the OAC website, click the Publish to OAC button. 
    • Once a file has been published, there is no subsequent option to preview it. You can continuously revise and publish updated results (see below).

Attach Supplemental PDFs

Once you have uploaded an EAD file, you can also subsequently attach one or more PDF inventories to the file by clicking the Attach PDFs button; for additional details, see Submitting Supplemental PDFs.

Update and Replace Published EAD Files

Once an EAD file has been published, you can continuously revise and publish the updated results on a "self-serve" basis through the OAC Dashboard:

  • Navigate to "Manage Collection Guides"
  • Under the list of your collection guides, browse or search for the EAD that you'd like to update
  • Select the guide
  • Click the Update EAD button
  • Use the Browse button to select and upload your updated EAD file, and click Update to save the changes

For additional details about updating EAD files, please see our page discussing Edit/Updating Finding Aids; Renaming EAD Files; Removing Finding Aids.