Kris Kiesling (Chair, SAA EAD Working Group and SAA Standards Committee) reports that the Web/HTML edition of the Encoded Archival Description Application Guidelines for Version 1.0 of the EAD DTD are now online from the Library of Congress EAD web site. The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids using SGML and XML (Extensible Markup Language). The Encoded Archival Description SGML/XML standard is used by dozens of universities and consortial digital library projects. The EAD standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress (LC) in partnership with the Society of American Archivists.
[February 12, 2001] Kris Kiesling writes: "I am very pleased to announce that the EAD Application Guidelines are now available online at the official Library of Congress EAD web site (http://lcweb.loc.gov/ead/). The Guidelines are encoded in HTML; all see references and footnotes are linked to facilitate location of relevant information. The Guidelines join the EAD Tag Library, which has been available online for over a year. The EAD Working Group hopes EAD users will find these online tools useful, and welcomes your feedback. Many thanks to Chelsea Dinsmore, archivist here at the Ransom Center who did the encoding; to Randy Barry for mounting the files; and to Susan Fox and Teresa Brinati at SAA for their support of this project!"
Contact:
Kris Kiesling
Chair, SAA EAD Working Group
Chair, SAA Standards Committee
Head, Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78713-7219
Voice: (512) 232-4614
Fax: 512.471.9646
kiesling@mail.utexas.edu
EAD implementation support is provided through the EAD Roundtable: "The EAD Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists is intended to promote the implementation and use of the EAD.DTD (Encoded Archival Description Document Type Definition) for dissemination of archival information. To this end, we aim to put persons in touch with appropriate information concerning converting existing archival finding aids to EAD format, use of software for markup, parsing, indexing, and document delivery, and the current status of EAD development."
EAD Cookbook: "During the meeting of the EAD Roundtable at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, attendees agreed that a simple model encoding protocol with an accompanying suite of software tools for 'authoring' electronic finding aids and stylesheets for 'publishing' them would be very useful. This Cookbook has been developed to accomplish that end. It functions as an extension of the EAD Tag Library and the EAD Application Guidelines. To use it, one must have a basic understanding of the EAD element set. The EAD Cookbook includes a markup protocol that is based on recommendations found in the EAD Application Guidelines and those promulgated by several EAD projects. It offers an explanation of the decisions behind the encoding recommendations, is accompanied by a suite of software tools that incorporate the model markup in various SGML/XML authoring applications, and includes step-by-step instructions for applying them. A sample finding aid for a fictional collection, encoded according to these guidelines, is included as an appendix. The markup syntax prescribed in the Cookbook enables one to display the text of a finding aid in many different ways. A set of four stylesheets, written in the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), is included to help you generate editions of your finding aids that are suitable for viewing in a web browser or as print copies. Step-by-step instructions guide you through each phase of EAD implementation."
