Tools & helper files Utah State Archives


URL: http://historyresearch.utah.gov/inventories/ead.htm

Encoding Procedure:  

Our EAD methodology is available at http://www.archives.state.ut.us/referenc/ead.htm but may be summarized as follows. Our finding aids had been in a Folio infobase for a number of years. Prior to that they were partly on paper and partly in WordPerfect, but were scanned and added to the Folio infobase. The contents of the Folio infobase were then extracted to Rich Text Format files, one file per finding aid, after which we ran search and replace commands (using HomeSite 4.5 because one command would update all the hundreds of documents at once) to replace the Rich Text formatting codes with EAD codes. The container lists were converted to WordPerfect tables. When in a table, they were then saved as merge files, which were then merged using forms that wrapped the XML markup around each table cell. The finished finding aids were then validated against the EAD DTD using XMetaL. Currently, all new markup is being done in XMetaL. When a finding aid is complete, staff looks at it using XMetaL's "page preview" feature, which uses one of our stylesheets to convert the document to HTML. That copy is printed and used as a draft for editing. After editing, the XML document is run through another stylesheet using XT on a command line, and the resulting HTML document (with its associated XML master document) is placed on the web. If an HTML document is large and would be troublesome for downloading to a browser, the contents are broken up into multiple HTML documents but the full finding aid is also then converted to PDF to make it easier to print. To create the PDF file, two stylesheets are used (the first one creating the other one) using XT and FOP.

Delivery Mechanism:  

The Utah State Archives has encoded all of its finding aids in XML and makes them available on the web in both HTML and XML formats. Some are available in PDF format. Both the HTML and PDF formats are created from the master XML document in conjunction with stylesheets. We use James Clark's XT parser to do the XSL transformation to HTML, and FOP (available from xml.apache.org) to do the Formatting-Objects-to-PDF transformation.

Contact:  

Elizabeth Perkes

Utah State Archives

346 South Rio Grande

Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1106

801-531-3852

eperkes@utah.gov

RLG Member:  

Last updated:  2007-02-19

Update information:
If any information concerning the above EAD implementation is incorrect or out of date download the XML source file for this entry, make required changes and mail back to jnemmers@ufl.edu. Updated entries may only be submitted by the contact listed above.