Online EAD finding aids have been created by a number of CIC libraries and are used to describe significant archival collections, other kinds of collections, and many important individual resources contained in those collections. While a relatively modest percentage of the individual objects mentioned in EAD finding aids have so far been digitized, much more digitization of such resources is planned.

A finding aid is a digital resource which describes other resources, whether analog or digital. Archival description proceeds from the general to the specific, using a series of hierarchical relationships represented in the <archdesc> and <dsc> (description of subordinate components) elements. The finding aid is neither an item, nor a collection, but it is a description of a collection and the subordinate parts of that collection, including possibly series, subseries, folders, and items.

In the context of the collaboration project of CIC institutions on metadata issues, the way to represent and aggregate finding aids is a specific issue of interest. As part of our investigation of this issue, this experimental portal offers access to a number of CIC institutions finding aids on numerous issues.

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