University of Virginia

Access to archival and manuscript collections can be greatly enhanced through the creation of a more robust, shared name authority system with appropriate contextual information. The University of Virginia, partnering with the School of information and Library Science at Simmons College and the Society of American Archivists, will lead a two-year project that will advance the development of such a system. This work will occur through two major sets of activities. The first set of activities will provide a scholarship program for seven regional professional training workshops in the use and implementation of Encoded Archival Context–Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF), the recently created standard for archival name authority work in archives and manuscripts. Twenty scholarships will be offered for each workshop (140 scholarships in total). These scholarship-supported workshops will build a critical mass of EAC-CPF adopters across the country. The second set of activities will revolve around planning activities as leaders in the archives, library, scholarly, and funding communities explore the feasibility of and essential requirements for establishing and sustaining a National Archival Authorities Cooperative (NAAC). The result will be published as a white paper.