Impressed by the potential EAD offers for intellectual access to manuscript collections via publication of their finding aids on the World Wide Web, the University of Vermont Libraries supported Special Collections in accumulating the tools and knowledge needed to convert printed inventories to Web-publishable documents. Staffed by one faculty member and two undergraduate students, all on a part-time basis, and with support from the library's systems staff, the EAD Project published its first inventory in March 1997. The project raised many questions, such as what constitutes accurate and appropriate use of EAD markup, what are the differences between publishing on paper and publishing the same information electronically, how to handle vocabulary control, and what is the most appropriate technology for electronic access to a variety of finding aid formats.

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