We are pleased to announce the launch of the new OAC platform, completely rebuilt adapting community-supported open source technologies. The launch includes a redesigned OAC public interface, as well as an upgraded Dashboard to manage publication of your collection guides. These release notes summarize the "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) upgrade, and includes a summary of known issues in the MVP release in July 2025.

What is included in this MVP release

An open and centralized public interface, providing discovery and access to finding aids and profiles of archival organizations across California:

  • A modernized public interface that is mobile device-responsive and complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2.
  • Options to search and browse across all finding aids, search and browse finding aids limited to individual institutions, and search within individual finding aids.
  • 60,000+ published collection guides, validated and migrated into the new system, with full and detailed finding aid displays and persistent ARK identifiers for EAD submissions. [See also Known Issues, below: EAD migration errors.]
  • Landing pages for individual institutions which include contact information and an institution profile. Please contact us if you would like to update this information. Please note that the URLs for institution landing pages have changed, and redirects are in place. [See also Known Issues, below: parent-level institution landing pages.]
  • Aggregate usage analytics tracked via Matomo, a web analytics application centered on user privacy.
  • Instrumenting URL redirects in cases where URLs have changed. Pages with redirect rules in place include: institution landing pages, and legacy METS records (superceded by Calisphere records). Please note that URLs with search queries do not redirect.
  • Integration of finding aids with Aeon, a researcher request management system licensed by Atlas Systems. [See also Known Issues, below: integration with MARC21 and RecordEXPRESS.]

"Self-serve" finding aid submission and publication process:

  • An updated OAC Contributor Dashboard, which you can use to manage information about your institution’s profile published in OAC and track information about the finding aids that you’ve published.
  • A streamlined finding aid submission and publication process, available on a self-serve basis via the Dashboard.
  • Support for multiple finding aid formats, including: Encoded Archival Description (EAD, Version 2002), and supplemental PDF finding aid formats. [See also Known Issues, below: MARC21 ingests.]
  • A refreshed RecordEXPRESS: a simple web-based form that you can use to quickly and easily publish information about your collections, in the form of an EAD finding aid (and optionally, supplemental PDFs).

Known issues with the MVP release

We have identified and are currently addressing the following known issues. We will update this page to provide a status as we resolve these issues.

OAC public website:

  • Browse collections held by multiple related institutions: The new OAC site supports browsing finding aids within a single institution. In cases where multiple institutions are related and under the rubric of a broader organization (e.g., a university, a state or county agency, etc.) there isn’t an option yet to browse finding aids within that broader organizational level.
  • URLs for parent-level institution landing pages (e.g., a university, a state or county agency, etc.): These pages do not have an analog in the new OAC website, and parent-level (i.e., campus-level) institution landing page URLs redirect to the home page.
  • Generating “printable guide [HTML]” pages for extensive finding aids: All finding aids in the new OAC site include a “Printable guide [HTML]” link, with the exception of 262 files. These files contain over 4,500 <c0#> Component elements in container lists, which will require additional time to process and display.
  • A-Z sort does not display search results or filter terms in alphabetical order: In a given set of search results, the options to sort by Title or Creator A-Z do not display the results alphabetically. Additionally,  filterable terms display on the left side of the results. When choosing the “more” option in the terms list, a pop-up list of terms appear; this list also provides an option to “Sort A-Z.” There is a known issue with the facet options: Creators, Names, Places, and Subjects, in which these terms may not display alphabetically for some results sets, when "Sort A-Z" is selected.
  • Aeon integration of MARC21 and RecordEXPRESS finding aids: If your repository is using Aeon, you can opt to embed "Request items" links in your finding aids. For MVP, Aeon links are active in EAD-based finding aids only. We are working on implementing Aeon links in MARC21 and RecordEXPRESS based finding aids.

OAC finding aid submissions:

  • EAD migration errors: As part of our transition to the new OAC system, we ran a bulk validation process on existing finding aids. We identified 1,079 EAD finding aids (approximately 2% of all migrated EAD finding aids total) that result in display errors in the new OAC website. The errors primarily include collections that have: invalid EAD and/or XML encoding; no collection title; no collection number; container list components designated as “collection” levels; and empty container list components. Please see our EAD migration errors summary for additional details about our proposed strategy to address these EAD validation errors.
  • MARC21 and bulk EAD submissions: The OAC Dashboard does not yet support the uploading and publication of MARC21 records, or multiple EAD files. Please contact us if you would like to publish MARC21 records, or need to bulk upload EAD files.

Planned features post-MVP

Looking ahead, we will prioritize and scope the implementation of additional features, such as: 

  • Integrated ArchivesSpace publication workflows: We will explore the implementation of an automated pipeline from contributors' ArchivesSpace platforms to OAC (e.g., using ArchivesSnake).
  • Sharing finding aids with OCLC's ArchiveGrid: OAC's optional feature for sharing finding aids with OCLC's ArchiveGrid finding aid discovery service will be re-enabled after the upgrade is completed.

We will update this page to indicate our progress on the known issues outlined on this page. Please report any errors you encounter and share feedback through our Help Center.