Finding aid revamp
April 21, 2010
Thanks to my buddy Brian McDonald (Electronic Services Librarian), most of our finding aids now look like the rest of the library webpages. [good library branding] Check it out, Valerie Saiving Papers. It took his genius to figure out how to edit the AT style sheet and make it easy for me to add an image, if I have one. I messed with it for a while, but no joy. I used to do a lot of html, but never got into stylesheets and CSS, etc.
I still have 7 that are in PDF format. Some are between 16 and 86 pages, so I don’t envision revamping those any time soon. If I need to add anything to one of those collections it might inspire me. Nothing has been added to them since I’ve been here, so I think I’m safe.
There are also three that are in the old format that I may try to update. One is the Holiday Cards. It was the 1st one I did using the EAD Cookbook and I was able to add all the images. It looks like AT doesn’t let you add images easily, so I may just leave that one alone.
Using mind mapping for a presentation
November 17, 2009
I have been using mind mapping for organizing my work flow in the archives. I recently agreed to do an informal presentation for RRLC’s College Archivists Roundtable so I decided to try it out as a presentation tool, rather than Powerpoint.
You can download free software for mind mapping at freemind.sourceforge.net if you want to try it out.
The presentation is on EAD so I begin with a center circle with EAD then add nodes for Who, Why, What, How and Resources.
I attach nodes to each of these, e.g. How has nodes for EAD Cookbook and Archivist’s Toolkit.
Each of them have nodes, e.g. EAD Cookbook has three; Download, starting a finding aid, troubleshooting.
Then each of those has nodes. It ends up looking like an illustration of evolution.
A couple of advantages are
- You don’t have to have all the branches open at once. You click on a node to expand it to the next level. This keeps it from being visually intimidating when you start out.
- You can add links to external webpages or programs and documents on your computer to each node.
The presentation is on Dec 4th. I’ll report back to you.
Maintained by the SAA EAD Roundtable
Cookbook/Notebook <../../../../Program Files/NoteTab Light/NoteTab.exe>
Detailed download and set up information in the Cookbook
installing EAD DTD
Customizing with your institutions information. Address etc.
Starting a Finding Aid
File \ New
In sidebar under files \ New EAD
Fill in template
Top Level Metadata
Controlled Access
Template
Add term
Administrative Information
I didn’t use much here but you might
Detailed description <dsc>
File or series
Container types down 6 levels
Troubleshooting
Any tag started must be closed
<ead> </ead>
<scopecontent> </scopecontent>
<head> </head>
Nesting
<dsc><c01><did><unittitle></unittitle></did></c01></dsc>
Can’t use &
Search/replace & -> and
Why
“standardization of collection information in finding aids within and across repositories.”
EAD (Encoded Archival Description
Who
Maintained by the SAA EAD Roundtable
Why
“standardization of collection information in finding aids within and across repositories.”
What
“a non-proprietary de facto standard for the encoding of finding aids for use in a networked (online) environment”
FORMALLY DEFINED mark up language
HTML; XML
DTD (Document Type Definition)
XML can use differnet DTD for different purposes
EXAMPLES
specifies how an EAD document will appear
Resources
EAD Help Pages <http:/www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/index.html>
OAC Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description <http:/www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/guidelines/bpgead/bpgead_1-2.html>
EAD Tag Library <http:/www.loc.gov/ead/tglib/index.html>
EAD Cookbook <http:/www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/ead2002cookbook.html>
Dowload Cookbook PDF <EAD2002cookbook.pdf>
Alone in the Archives (start 5/17/2006) <http:/lcb48.wordpress.com/2006/05>
How
Cookbook/Notebook <../../../../Program Files/NoteTab Light/NoteTab.exe>
Detailed download and set up information in the Cookbook
installing EAD DTD
Customizing with your institutions information. Address etc.
Starting a Finding Aid
File \ New
In sidebar under files \ New EAD
Fill in template
Top Level Metadata
Controlled Access
Template
Add term
Administrative Information
I didn’t use much here but you might
Detailed description <dsc>
File or series
Container types down 6 levels
Troubleshooting
Any tag started must be closed
<ead> </ead>
<scopecontent> </scopecontent>
<head> </head>
Nesting
<dsc><c01><did><unittitle></unittitle></did></c01></dsc>
Can’t use &
Search/replace & -> and
Archivists Toolkit <../../../../Program Files/Archivists’ Toolkit 1.5/Archivists’ Toolkit 1.5.exe>
Highlight Resource
Click on reports icon
Select Report “Finding Aid”
Select output
HTML
Archivists Toolkit <../../../../Program Files/Archivists’ Toolkit 1.5/Archivists’ Toolkit 1.5.exe>
Highlight Resource
Click on reports icon
Select Report “Finding Aid”
Select output
HTML
What
“a non-proprietary de facto standard for the encoding of finding aids for use in a networked (online) environment”
FORMALLY DEFINED mark up language
HTML; XML
DTD (Document Type Definition)
XML can use differnet DTD for different purposes
EXAMPLES
specifies how an EAD document will appear
Resources
EAD Help Pages <http:/www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/index.html>
OAC Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description <http:/www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/guidelines/bpgead/bpgead_1-2.html>
EAD Tag Library <http:/www.loc.gov/ead/tglib/index.html>
EAD Cookbook <http:/www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/ead2002cookbook.html>
Dowload Cookbook PDF <EAD2002cookbook.pdf>
Alone in the Archives (start 5/17/2006) <http:/lcb48.wordpress.com/2006/05>
Finding Aids from Archivist’s Toolkit.
February 26, 2009
OK, I know a lot of you are quicker on the uptake than I am, but I’ve fused over doing finding aids with the data from Archivist’s Toolkit for months. I would try, get the data with no formating, try something else, no joy, wait a few weeks than start all over again.
“It’s all happened before, and it will all happen again.” BSG
I was:
- using the AT export EAD button
- taking the file to Notebook with the EAD Cookbook
- doing parse and validate
- doing make HTML
Makes sense, that was how I had done finding aids by hand.
Guess what! Finding Aid is a report under Resources in AT! Talk about making things harder than they need to be.
I did need some help with one change. The title of the finding aid was showing up as the ID number. I posted my question on atug-L yesterday and found it answered this morning. Thank you, Winona Salesky of UVM!!
If this helps anyone see the light sooner than I did…HUZZAH.
[Points for me, I remembered to update my Procedures Wiki with the new information. 
]
Dime Novel Finding Aid complete
June 20, 2008
It has been a long hall on the Joseph J. Myler Collection of Half Dime Novels, but it is finally complete. The listing started in MS Access, moved and was finished in Archivists Toolkit. The finding aid was exported from AT, and cleaned-up in Note Tab using EAD Cookbook clips. It makes me think we have come a long way since we started receiving this donation.
Take a look: http://academic.hws.edu/library/archives/dime.asp
The next step with my finding aids is to do something about the colors. Perhaps I need to move to another school to do it though.
William Smith College Charter Class
August 7, 2007
Well I got the finding aid for the charter class files up today with no problems using the EAD Cookbook and Notetab. Still the most reliable method.
EAD and Archivists Toolkit
August 3, 2007
I just finished put William Smith Charter Class finding aid in EAD using Notebook and the Cookbook clips.
This is one I exported from AT, and could not get to parse in Notebook before attaching the style sheet. I spent a number of hours going over the AT code line by line trying to find the problem. What ever it was it eluded me. So today, deciding I wanted to finally finish this project, I did it again by cutting and pasting from the AT xml into Notebook. It parsed, so I feel certain all is well.
Tuesday I’ll do my best to get it up on the server.
Archivists’ Toolkit
January 17, 2007
I found out about the Archivists’ Toolkit from reading other blog. It is awesome!!!
The installation instructions were very clear. It’s important to read them all, because it requires loading MySQL as well.
I got as far as importing my already created EAD finding aids, and started working through a new accession. There is a lot to it, but is looks like it will make a lot of description easier.
I’ll keep you up-to-date on my progress.
Campus buildings resource guide
October 30, 2006
I just added a new resource guide to my Finding Aids page on our campus buildings.
When I started my morph from librarian to archivist someone told me you can’t call something a finding aid if it isn’t describing a distinct collection, so I went with “resource guide” for this type of project. There are subjects, like campus buildings, that we get asked about all of the time and a resource guide helps us put our hands on items that are spread out throughout the collection more quickly.
I have my student workers
- list everything they can find in the card catalog and the online catalog on a subject (there is little overlap between the two)
- add description information from the cataloging
- pull the material to check that it’s where it should be
Then I cut and paste the information into NoteTab and create an EAD “resource guide”.
We have done the same thing for Elizabeth Blackwell, first woman to receive her degree as a Doctor of Medicine (this one is a PDF) and Dr. Benjamin Hale, President of Hobart College from 1836 to 1858.
I don’t know if anyone else uses them, but the speed up the reference process for me when I get questions.
EAD-to-HTML conversion
July 11, 2006
I received the following e-mail question from Jordon Steele, Archivist at the Biddle Law Library at U of Penn.
So I’ve encoded 3 finding aids in EAD and written the XSL stylesheets to convert them to HTML. However, when I display the XML files online and view the source code, the source code shows EAD tags and not HTML. As a result, older browsers won’t parse the XML and I get an error message. I think it has something to do with the fact that the XML to HTML conversion is being done in the browser, which is why older browsers that don’t understand XML can’t process the request. Check out the finding aids (“Collection Guides”) on my website and view the source to see what I’m talking about:
http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/collections/Bankruptcy.html
How did you get your EAD finding aids to display in HTML? Did you employ a conversion step before posting them on the web?
I went to look at his finding aids and they look great (I really like the style he used) in my browser. I use Firefox 1.0.4. which I really love, and it’s free!
I compared his source page to mine and it looks like he may have skipped the conversion step. The xml does need to be converted to html. This is one step in the process in NoteTab under Transform > Make HTML. I believe It can also be done in MS Word, but I use NoteTab so I don’t know the process.
If any readers have ideas about conversion, please let us know. Let’s help each other out here.
My thoughts on Jordans question.
June 12, 2006
I haven't tested out your situation specifically, but I believe you can get the indents you want by using <c02> under the description <dsc> part of the EAD. The trick is to put it with your <c01>, after the </did> before the </c01>. Then the style sheet should format it for you. You can go as deep as <c06> but I haven't so I don't know what it looks like in my style sheet.
Here is an example from a resource list I am working on.
<c01 level="file">
<did>
<container type="Box"></container>
<container type="Folder"></container>
<unittitle>Photographs, </unittitle>
<unitdate></unitdate>
</did>
<c02 level="file">
<did>
<container type="Box"></container>
<container type="Folder">h3c7</container>
<unittitle>Includes Geneva Hall, </unittitle>
<unitdate>undated</unitdate>
</did>
</c02>
<c02 level="file">
<did>
<container type="Box"></container>
<container type="Folder">h6b</container>
<unittitle>Includes Middle Building, Merritt and Trinity Halls, </unittitle>
<unitdate>undated</unitdate>
</did>
</c02>
</c01>
Let me know if this works. Or if anyone else has suggestions we'd all love to hear them so please leave a comment.
