1) How useful were the pre-course readings?

1: Very useful for preparation and review of the course. 2: The general introductory readings were more valuable than the highly technical given my level of understanding before the course. 3: Very useful. They equipped me with a certain degree of grounding in the field which, if I hadn't read, would have made the course extremely frustrating. 4: Very useful. 5: Very helpful as background. Helped to put much of the first day's remarks in context. 6: Very helpful for a foundation and general understanding of the material. 7: Provided good context, although they were a bit technical. 8: Very useful. 9: Good introduction, perhaps a little intimidating. 10: They were useful so as to not go into the class with no knowledge of the subject material of the course. They were too technical however, to understand without some knowledge of our subject EAD. It was a bit of a Catch 22. 11: Course material for this particular class was very difficult for me to absorb before coming to class. This kind of material I find I need to discuss/review in class setting in order to comprehend.

2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?

1: If I knew the required readings are included in course syllabus, I won't print and bring a copy of them with me. 2-3: Yes. 4: Yes -- especially the handbook and "workshop.exe" downloads. 5: Yes. 6: Yes -- very useful, especially the files and electronic materials. I know they will be very helpful to my further understanding and practice with EAD once I am at home. 7: Yes, very. 8: Yes, and yes. 9: Very useful during class and should be good reference at home. 10: Yes, they are appropriate and will be useful in the future. 11: Will be particularly useful in the future.

3) Was the intellectual level of the course content appropriate?

1-5: Yes. 6: It was much more complex than I originally believed it would be. 7: Yes. I thought I might be very lost by the end of the week, but I was not. 8-9: Yes. 10: Students who were somewhat familiar with EAD seemed to be able to "keep up." I had no other background than the readings and much was way over my head. 11: Yes.

5) Did the actual course content correspond to its RBS brochure description and Expanded Course Description (ECD)? Did the course in general meet your expectations?

1: Yes! 2-9: Yes. 10: Yes, although I did not realize we would have debate over archival arrangement and its relation to EAD. 11: Yes.

6) What did you like best about the course?

1: Hands-on practice. 2: Explanation of tools available to assist EAD conversions. 3: The instructor! He's great and he is definitely one of the (if not the) major player in EAD development and implementation. If that's not enough he's also a nice guy, very patient, and explains the subject well. 4: Having an expert in the field, who was instrumental in the development of EAD, actually explain it. I've taken other EAD courses, and none came close to the level of clarity, insightfulness, historical context, and meaning DP was able to provide. 5: The instructor was excellent. He did a terrific job of making some fairly complex concepts easy to understand. Also, the hands-on section was key to developing a comfort level with EAD. 6: The course workbook and FTP files for future assistance as a learning guide. 7: The opportunity to gain first-hand personal assistance and guidance from the instructor, and the helpfulness of fellow students. 8: I enjoyed the hands-on encoding practicum: having the ability to make errors and figure them out on my own, plus having the teacher come around for individualized attention. I also learned a great deal by working with fellow students. 9: Hands on work. Opportunity to try out what we were learning. 10: I liked the time and energy DP put into teaching and the ways in which he gave personal attention to the finding aids that we made. 11: All the hands-on work in the computer lab.

7) How could the course have been improved?

1: Maybe the class can be divided into smaller groups, so that students can have better learning experience and communication. 2: More time should be spent on the content of the fields. Also more distinction should have been made between minimal collection level records and fully developed markups. 3: One recommendation -- during the early part of the week DP lectured with a Power point presentation -- It would have been helpful to have had a paper copy of each slide on which to make notations. 4: I think this course is necessary and should be retained as is. However, I'd like to see an additional course offered (some where between the Implementation and Advanced Publishing course), geared toward folks who need to get finding aids online and who don't have a background in configuring web servers. Also, a class session on extracting fields from a database onto an EAD-compliant document would be phenomenally helpful for the large group of archivists out there cataloging collections in a database and who also want to deploy EAD. DP mention that this is possible, but being able to work on it in class with his assistance would be great. Could students bring a data base instead of a paper finding aid?? Also -- for the "intermediate" level a class session dedicated to using catalogs would be wonderful. DP did a great job of quickly demonstrating this, but I fear without time to play with it in class for myself, I doubt I'll remember. 6: Focused only on basic EAD coding and not have been so complex with the style sheets (more involved that what I will be doing). 7: A smaller class (we had 11 people) would allow for more intense time with the instructor and the ability to renew each other's work, but I did not feel neglected. 8: No suggestions. 9: Might be better to spend same amount of time with each student but broken up into more visits. Often had to wait quite a while to have a question about our own finding aids answered. 10: I would have liked it to be less technical, if possible, and to have one or two extra days in which to learn. 11: One or more TAs to assist DP when we got to the stage where we were encoding our own finding aids. He could not possibly move around the room quickly enough to answer everyone's questions.

9) Please comment on the quality/enjoyability of the various RBS activities in which you took part outside of class (e.g. Sunday afternoon tour, Sunday night dinner, evening lectures, Bookseller Night, Video Night, Study Night, tour of the Alderman digital/electronic centers, printing demonstrations, &c.).

2: Excellent, particularly the Monday night lecture. 3: I attended the Tuesday evening Bookseller Night and the Sunday night dinner and lecture. The Booksellers event wasn't as enjoyable because (1) the weather was awful and (2) several of the booksellers did not stay open. Generally though, after a full day of class, I found myself too exhausted to attend events. 4: I wasn't feeling well, so did not attend in evening events. However, they sound great, and should definitely be retained. 5: Sunday tour = excellent. Bookseller Night = too bad the weather was bad -- it cut down on the number of people. But our group of seven had fun and it was a treat to see the downtown mall. 6: The Monday evening lecturer was fabulous! I wish we could have enjoyed another during the week. Bookseller Night was very relaxing and enjoyable. 7: Few booksellers were open for the Bookseller Night. Did not attend everything due to tiredness after a long day of/in class. 8: Sunday's tour was very good. Most activities are geared for book-related course participants, so I didn't attend a lot of activities. I enjoyed Bookseller Night despite the pouring rain. 9: Sunday afternoon tour -- good idea -- guide a little scattered. Sunday dinner -- nice ice breaker. Sunday lecture -- good history of RBS. Bookseller Night -- much appreciated (at least three on list were closed) to entertain us in the evening is more than should be expected from RBS, however. 10: I enjoyed them. Thank you for providing them. 11: As always, I enjoyed Bookseller Night. Kudos to all the dealers who stay open late for us.

10) Did you get your money's worth? Any final thoughts?

2: Yes. 3: Yes. My advice for others considering this course is to do as much reading as possible on EAD before arrival -- you won't regret it. 4: Yes -- I definitely got my money's worth. Having made contact with DP and my classmates (i.e., others embarking on an EAD adventure) is perhaps one of the most immediate and tangible benefits. Thanks for giving me this opportunity. 5: Absolutely! I would highly recommend not only this course but RBS in general. 6: Yes. 7: Yes. DP is so helpful; he answers every question with patience, and he has great enthusiasm for EAD. The software tools he used made understanding EAD much easier than I initially anticipated. Thank you! 8: I definitely got my money's worth -- very helpful to come home with a disk of files that DP prepared for the class. It will make implementing what I've learned very easy, when I return to my job. Spring break week = not much going on = music practice rooms closed = restaurants close early or closed completely. I know you can't help the timing of RBS but pre-warning would be helpful. 9: Absolutely. I would highly recommend the course. 10: Having not understood parts of the material we covered made for a difficult learning environment. I am happy though for the things I learned in the course. 11: I would suggest anyone taking this course in the future spend several hours working with someone who is already familiar with EAD. I felt some members of the class were better prepared/had encoding experience before they came to the class.

Number of respondents: 11

There were two rare book librarians (18%), eight archivist/manuscript librarians (73%), and one general librarian with no rare book duties (9%)

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