As part of a multi-faceted research project examining user engagement with various types of descriptive metadata, Utah State University Libraries Cataloging and Metadata Services unit (CMS) investigated the discoverability of local Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids. The research team put two versions of the same finding aid online with one described at the file (box or folder) level and the other at the item level. Over a year later, the team pulled the analytics for each guide and assessed which descriptive level was most frequently accessed. The research team also looked at the type of search terms patrons utilized and where in the finding aid they were located. Usage data shows that personal names are the most common type of search term, search terms are most commonly found in the Collection Inventory, and that the availability of item-level description improves discovery by an average of 6,100% over file-level descriptions
