EAD Report Card

RLG recently released the EAD Report Card, a very useful tool for institutions encoding finding aids in EAD. From the report card site, you can submit an EAD2002 XML file, and receive feedback on areas where your finding aid doesn't or potentially doesn't conform to the RLG EAD Best Practice Guidelines. There are two options for output: checking only Mandatory and Mandatory if Applicable items, or everything from the best practice guidelines. Even the former (the looser of the two) generates many warnings for Mandatory if Applicable elements (which are rarely applicable in our environment), but it's still a useful tool to run your finding aids through. The best part is, they'll be releasing source code soon so institutions can tailor the checks to their local needs. I'll definitely recommend we do that.