RecordEXPRESS

If you're using RecordEXPRESS to create a finding aid, you have the option to indicate a URL link to digital versions of the collection items (that are published through your digital collection system, etc.) -- this shows up as an "Online items" link at the top of the guide. Here's an example of a RecordEXPRESS guide, with the link: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt9199s3rs/.

For more information, check out our RecordEXPRESS help pages.

ArchivesSpace, Archivists' Toolkit, and Archon

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 for information on adding links to digital objects:

Note that Archivists' Toolkit and Archon do not support linking from the collection-level to all associated items. To do that, you'll need to manually encode the links in the source EAD, as described below.

EAD Encoding

Within your source EAD finding aid files, you have the option to add links from any level of description (files, items) to associated digital object(s).

Here's an example of an EAD collection guide in OAC, that's linking from the collection-level to locally-hosted digital objects (in this particular case, objects that are published in CONTENTdm): http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt9199s3rs/

Creating the link from the EAD collection guide to the objects requires placing a snippet encoding, within the EAD file itself. The specs are documented in Section 4.5 of our OAC Best Practice Guidelines for EAD. See pp. 32-33 of the for an encoded example, in context. The encoding will trigger an "Online items" link in the display of the finding aid in OAC, pointing to whatever URL you enter as the link.

Collection-Level Links to Digital Objects

Below is the EAD snippet (for DTD-based files), which you can encode within the high-level <did> -- i.e., at the "collection"-level:

<archdesc>
<did>
...
<dao role="http://oac.cdlib.org/arcrole/link/search/" 
     href="[URL here]" 
     title="Online items">
<daodesc>
<head>Online Items</head>
<p>Selected digitized images from this collection.</p>
</daodesc>
</dao>
</did>
...
</archdesc>

For Archivists' Toolkit-generated finding aids, you will need to manually encode this snippet within the exported EAD (out-of-the-box, Archivists' Toolkit doesn't support this encoding). Note the "ns2" namespace declaration that needs to appear on the <dao> attributes:

<archdesc>
<did>
...
<dao ns2:role="http://oac.cdlib.org/arcrole/link/search/" 
     ns2:href="[URL here]" 
     ns2:title="Online items">
<daodesc>
<head>Online Items</head>
<p>Selected digitized images from this collection.</p>
</daodesc>
</dao>
</did>
...
</archdesc>