On the 31st of July 2026 the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) released the updated version of the Encoded Archival Standards (EAS) Suite during the SAA Annual Meeting ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2026 in New Orleans.
The updated EAS Suite was developed by the members of TS-EAS who participate in this work on a voluntary basis with support from their employers. The development of the standards suite would not have been possible without the support of the broader community who participated in webinars, surveys and other forums to provide input into the work to create the updated version of EAD to version 4, EAC-CPF to version 3 and the new standard EAC-F in version 1.
The Encoded Archival Standards (EAS) Suite includes the three standards Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Encoded Archival Context: Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) and the newest standard, Encoded Archival Context: Functions (EAC-F). They provide the different XML formats to use for answering the Who, Why and What of records in XML.
With this version of the EAS Suite, the Best Practices Guide (BPG) is being rebranded as the companion resource that provides more detailed explanations about the Tag Libraries (TL). The TL’s explains the elements, attributes, and syntax rules for the standards, while the BPG provides explanations and examples for the elements, attributes and rules written in everyday language that is accessible to everyone. TS-EAS invites the community to provide input and enhancements to the BPG to make it the community resource support it needs to thrive! More information on how to contribute is found in the BPG.
TS-EAS is providing the community with an validator for XML-documents utilising the EAS Suite in the case there is no access to a software product with validation capabilities. The validator is provided through GitHub, https://saa-sdt.github.io/eas-schematron-validator/ .
TS-EAS at the same time wants to acknowledge and give our thanks to the Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) who is providing this version of the EAS Suite with the DNS records needed for making the XML-schemas available online.
Links to the standards:
For the whole TS-EAS
Karin Bredenberg and Mary Samouelian, co-chairs of TS-EAS