Last Saturday I was asked to give a short overview of Archon to the Preservation Committee of the Swedish American Historical Society. It was mostly a hands-on demonstration of how to use Archon and not a theoretical exercise about the transformative role of technology in archival metadata. However, the basic question I was trying to answer was “Why does this matter?” or perhaps “Why is this important?” and those seemed like questions worth answering in a compelling way.

Structured Data > Unstructured Data

By this I mean simply that data that is organized into formal structures (whether MARC, Dublin Core, EAD, whatever) has clear and distinct advantages over unorganized and unstructured data. This project began with loosely organized and structured data – paper based finding aids – but migrated that into the more formal structure of Archon. This had several advantages:

• Ability to standardize language and make the data more uniform.
• Ability to set clear metadata standards and systematically improve and add metadata.
• Ability to migrate to new and differnt systems.

The main advantage of this structure vs. unstructured data is so important to me that it deserves it’s own heading

Linked Data > Unlinked Data

Structuring metadata in an online system allows for a paradigm-shifting revolution – that data can be linked to other pieces of data. I’ve been thinking about this for a while – and will likely continue to think about this – but this is the power of the paradigm shift. Data is linked to other data – thereby linking thoughts, ideas, people, etc. Linked data is fundamentally different than unlinked data.

Typing a subject heading onto a card catalog is fundamentally different than typing a subject heading into a linked database. The question when typing a card catalog seemed to be “what will describe this item to our users?” whereas the fundamental question when created linked data is “how can I link this item to similar items in ways that will be helpful and meaningful?” and that is a huge distinction in my mind. Thinks like controlled vocabularies, conforming to national standards, etc. all make infinitely more sense when linked data is viewed from this perspective.

More Access > Less Access

This perhaps seems obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. More access is better than less access. Connecting people to information resources is the most important work of the library and of archives and providing more access seems nearly undeniably better than providing less access.

I will almost certainly add to this later on (as my views on technology and metadata continue to evolve) but I wanted to take a moment to document this particular moment in time,  capture my current thoughts on the subject, and rely a bit of what I wanted to convey to the Preservation Committee of the Swedish American Historical Society.