John---
I'm late in replying to your e-mail. I would be interested in trying your
Acccess-based authoring tool here at the Minnesota Historical Society, if
you are still willing to send along a copy. One caveat: We aren't NoteTab
users, so if NoteTab is required to parse and convert the documents, there
is probably no point in sending.
Thanks,
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: John Rees [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 9:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Markup tool proposal
As much as I love NoteTab, I've been searching for a way to speed up the
box/folder list process, as well as provide an interface that removes
the need for an in-depth knowledge of EAD for data entry.
Here at NLM we've developed an Access2000 tool that speeds up data
entry and spits out an EAD instance via the Report function. We took
much of the high level encoding operation from Alvin Pollock's tool.
Where we diverged was using Perl to do the box/folder markup. Here we
used some Visual Basic so both high-level and container-level
description could be performed in a single tool. We do not have Perl
expertise at our beck and call within our operational division, so
institutional culture also played a role.
I still use my batch files in NoteTab to parse and convert to XML and
HTML, however. The tool is very basic at this point and is not designed
to incorporate image groups or the vast array of optional EAD elements
(I still plan on using NoteTab for fine tuning when necessary). On the
other hand, the tool accommodates 95% of our needs. It even handles a
600+ box collection quite easily, that we imported from Excel.
So, if anyone would care to test drive this thing and give me feedback,
I'd be happy to share. I will prob. have to e-mail it, since we don't
have anonymous FTP access here that I'm aware of. Right now the tool is
4 KB and you'll probably need an intermediate understanding of Access if
you really want to play with it.
John P. Rees
Associate Curator, Modern Manuscripts
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD. 20894
(301) 496-8953 Office
(301) 402-7034 Fax
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