EAD: An Introduction and Primer

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EAD An Introduction and Primer

• Christopher J. Prom, Ph.D.
• Assistant University Archivist
• University of Illinois Archives
• July 7, 2003

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Structure of this talk

• http//netfiles.uiuc.edu/prom/www/talk.xml

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Structure of this talk
lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"iso-8859-1"
?gt lttalkgt ltArchivalDescription/gt
lteadStructuregt ltGeneral/gt
ltHighLevelElements/gt ltDescriptionOfSubor
dinateComponts/gt lt/eaeStructuregt
ltauthoringEAD/gt ltdisplayingEADgt
ltstaticHTMLDisplay/gt
ltdynamicSearchableDisplayOptions/gt
lt/displayingEADgt lteadIssues/gt lt/talkgt
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Archival Description and EAD

• Markup for archival description (finding aids),
  not for texts themselves
• Archival descriptionISAD(G) (http//www.ica.org/b
  iblio/cds/isad_g_2e.pdf)
• Provides description of materials in the
  collection
• Also provides evidence of actions by individual
  or organization which created or gathered the
  collection (provenance)
• Arrangement is based on original order and use
• Proceeds from general (collection level) to
  specific (series, folder, item level)
• Multilevel in nature, information inherited from
  one level to next
• Many possible relationships, structures
• Can describe one document or millions
• These factors make it well suited for sgml/xml
• Ideally used as a complement to MARC record
  describing collection

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(No Transcript)
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EAD StructureGeneral

• SGML and xml versions of DTD (v. 2002)
• XSD schema current under development
• General points about structure
• many elements optional
• most repeatable at any level, nesting can vary
• Normalization not common for most finding aids
• Is it data or document centric????
• Many artifacts of document-centric markup, can
  complicate display, especially in federated
  systems
• EAD is a data structure standard, NOT a content
  standard
• RLG guidelines (http//www.rlg.org/rlgead/eadguide
  s.html)

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High Level Elements

• lteadheadergt (information about EAD File)
• lteadidgt unique id
• ltfiledescgt
• lttitlestmtgt
• ltpublicationstmtgt
• ltnotestmtgt
• ltprofiledescgt
• ltcreationgt
• ltlangusagegt
• ltrevisiondescgt
• ltfrontmattergt (deprecated element, repeats info
  for display)
• ltarchdescgt (information about materials being
  described)
• level attribute required (typically set to
  collection)

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Common Top-Level ltarchdescgt Elements
ltdidgt (descriptive id) ltoriginationgt
ltunitititlegt ltunitdategt ltphysdescgt
ltabstractgt ltrepositorygt
ltunitidgt ltbioghistgt ltscopecontentgt ltarrangementgt lt
controlaccessgt ltaccessrestrictgt
Other elements include ltaccrualsgt, ltacqinfogt,
ltaltformatavailgt, ltappraisalgt, ltcustodhistgt,
ltprefercitegt, ltprocessinfogt, ltuserestrictgt,
ltrelatedencodinggt, ltseparatedmaterialgt,
ltotherfindaidgt, ltbibliographygt, ltoddgt Linking
elements based on XLink spec, suite of linking
elements includes ltarchrefgt ,ltextrefgt,
ltdaogrpgt All of above elements are repeatable
for components of the collection, at any level in
the ltdscgt (description of subordinate components)
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ltdscgt (description of subordinate components)

• Series of nested components (i.e. ltcgt
  unnumbered ltc01gt, ltc02gt, etc. numbered)
  represent intellectual structure of materials
  being described
• ltcontainergt elements (within each level)
  represent physical arrangement
• Maximum depth of 12 levels
• All elements available in archdesc top level also
  available in any component (typically not used)
• Use of _at_level highly recommended.
• Linking to digital surrogates via ltdaogt, ltdaogrpgt
• Sample finding aid
• xml http//web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/xml/26200
  16.xml
• html http//web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/ua/26200
  16/2620016f.html

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Authoring EAD

• Current options
• Text editors (cheap, no built in validation,
  transformation or unicode support)
• Notetab
• WordProcessors
• XML editors (graphical view, built in validation,
  transformation, unicode support, FOP tend to be
  buggy)
• XML Spy
• oXygen
• XMetal (not recommended)
• EAD Cookbook highly recommended, templates for
  Notetab, oXygen
• Future?
• Archivists Toolkit (UCSD, NYU project)

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How UI Archives uses EAD

• For selected collections only
• Text input in WordPerfect
• Markup in Notetab Pro with scripts
• EAD files harvested by RLG
• OAI provider site on top of collection database
• In future, will create lteadheadergt and top of
  ltarchdescgt out of database, then do ltdscgt
  directly in xml editor

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NoteTab Clips (Macros)
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• Clip Language Easy to program (really!)

CLIP language
Clip Language
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Entering a Link
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Displaying EAD

• Most common to transform to HTML
• Static via xsl stylesheet on command line, upload
  files to server
• Client-side via link to css or xsl, example
• lt?xml-stylesheet type"text/xsl"
  href"simple.xsl"?gt
• Server side transform engine (saxon, msxml,
  xalan, etc) via servlets
• Dynamic (searchable)
• dlxs findaid class

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Samples

• Static http//www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/ed
  wards.htm
• Client side http//www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole
  /e/edwards.xml
• PDF http//www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/e/edwar
  ds.pdf
• DLXS implementations
• http//www.umich.edu/bhl/EAD/index.html
• http//www.oac.cdlib.org/
• Other implementations
• Cheshire http//www.archiveshub.ac.uk/

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EAD Issues

• Workflow
• Different ways that options are is applied can
  cause interoperability problems
• Display issues
• Not searchable at most institutions
• Need for a schema to more closely integrate with
  other applications (METS, OAI)

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EAD Resources

• http//www.loc.gov/ead/
• http//www.iath.virginia.edu/ead/
• Daniel Pitti, Wendy Duff, eds. Encoded Archival
  Description on the Internet