Rather than converting existing finding aids, our focus has been to get some standard information about all of our collections onto our Web site, and EAD seemed the most effective way to accomplish this. Thus we are undertaking an "EAD-lite" project, and using only a small subset of the codes. Each EAD entry presents brief collection information, a biographical note, a scope and content note, some administrative information, and (in most cases) a portrait of the individual. In 1997, Scott Leonard, a graduate student from the University of Maryland College of Library and Information Services, as part of an internship, developed the EAD site. He did the technical groundwork, did the initial coding, and worked out most of the "bugs" in the system (of which there were many). He also encoded the first batch of finding aids and wrote detailed instructions for encoders who would follow him. Since then, students, part-time workers, and one professional have done the encoding.

The project coordinator checks the encoding on each entry; several members of the Archives staff edit the entries for content and style. SGML markup was done using SoftQuad's Author/Editor program, and the SGML finding guides display in Panorama. (We offer the HTML version as the "default" option, as we don't expect most of our users to have Panorama.) The next phase will be to add folder listings. For these, we will be working with existing finding aids in a variety of formats: printed guides, typed inventories, and WordPerfect documents. We contracted with ArchProteus conversion service to convert a very large inventory which heretofore only existed as a published volume. They produced both an HTML and an SGML/EAD version, both of which will soon be available on our Web site. We plan to contract with ArchProteus to convert other inventories.