Are Finding Aids Easy Enough for Researchers to Use?

p strongSpecial collections generally value their finding-aid platforms, but irregular updating and inconsistent description continue to create navigation problems for researchers./strong/p p Primary Research Group found that 65.39% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with their archival finding-aid platform. Consortial infrastructure was widespread: 69.23% published through a system such as ArchivesSpace or ArchiveGrid, rising to 87.5% among research universities. ArchivesSpace was the leading access platform, used by 65.38%./p p Content maintenance is the weak point. A total of 46.15% d or revised finding aids only rarely. Just 7.69% were very satisfied with consistency of description across collections, while 34.62% were dissatisfied. Researcher difficulty was common: 57.69% said users sometimes had trouble navigating finding aids and 7.69% said the problem occurred often./p p Responsibility is also fragmented. Only 26.92% had staff dedicated to s 34.62% shared the work and 30.77% had no dedicated staff. A practical improvement program can begin with the most-used collections, broken links, outdated access statements and terms that users do not understand. Search logs, reference questions and short usability sessions can reveal problems that internal review misses./p p A platform can be stable while discovery remains difficult. The management benchmark should therefore cover description quality, frequency and task success&mdashnot just whether finding aids are online./p p  /p