Stephen,
I am aware of the difficulties; however, I think we are living a critical
moment, and the effort must be made. I guess I am not allowed to send attachments
to the list, but, last May, I had the pleasure to be invited to the National
Meeting of Portuguese Archivist, and I tried to explain with my paper some
of the EAD threads and challenges. If you wish a detailed description of
my point of view, I guess you can find the information over www.apbad.pt.
Otherwise, I can send the paper to your address.
Best Regards
Alejandro Delgado Gomez
>-- Mensaje original --
>Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:52:41 -0400
>Reply-To: Encoded Archival Description List <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Stephen Yearl <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: XML Schema for EAD 2002
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Perhaps schema proponents can better articulate why they need an _official_
>reworking of EAD in their schema language of choice?
>
>I stress official. EAD is more than the DTD: in fact it is not even
>the DTD, it just so happens that the common currently shared formal
>definition of EAD is expressed by DTD syntax (and not just for XML, you
>will remember). Like Clay and many others, I too use formal grammars (and
>rules-based validation mechanisms) that are impossible to achieve express
>in a DTD. But really, who cares by what means these constraints are
>enforced? My investment is in the markup, not the formal expression of
it
>
>A locally derived schema (RELAX NG, XML-verbose) is in heavy use in my
unit
>at Yale, and has more than realized the effort involved in crafting it.
>But it is used just for local purposes. It constrains an instantiation
of
>EAD that is specific to our needs, a subset of EAD proper. There are many,
>many benefits to our use of this schema, but it remains a utilitarian tool
>targeted for specific use. Schema benefits are all on the "processing"
>rather than the "exchange" side of things: There is no mechanism for
>formally validating an XML instance against a schema for instance. The
XML
>spec will tell you, amongst other things, that the root node (ead) must
>match that of the document type declaration, and that the document type
>declaration must contain a reference to a grammar that is expressed in
DTD.
>How to do this _portably_ with schema?
>
>I'm a big fan of schemas (shemata), and would be further out to sea than
>I'd be happy about without RNG, but I would imagine that our community
>(which is exceedingly diverse) needs to better understand the nature of
the
>advanced constraining features that schemata allow for. Example: should
we
>impose a schema constraint that date@normal be ISO 8601? Then, as Mary
Lacy
>pointed out in a recent message to this list, how to express distant, BCE
>dates? Now your Julian date@normal
><http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/JulianDate.html> are invalid.
>Creating an official schema is not going to be as simple as letting loose
>one of the very many DTD to schema converters on the EAD 202 DTD; it's
>going to require a lot of thought and analysis. Locally however, or for
>consortial arrangements, schema are invaluable-- they are the mechanical
>best practise guidelines, if you will.
>
>just my $0.2.
>
>
>St.
>
>Stephen Yearl
>Systems Archivist
>Yale University Library::Manuscripts and Archives
>
>
>
>At 05:24 PM 6/2/2004, you wrote:
>>Thanks to Clay for bringing this up.
>>
>>I'd also be VERY interested in finding out the current status of an
>>official EAD W3C XML/RelaxNG schema. Like Clay, I'd be willing to do what
>>ever I could to assist in the effort.
>>
>>Terry
>>
>>On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Clay Redding wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I, as well as several list members and institutions, have now converted
>>>the EAD 2002 DTD to XML Schema for local development with XForms,
>>>InfoPath, OAI, JAXB, etc. I'm curious where the provision of an
>>>official EAD 2002 XML Schema stands. I have heard that one is in
>>>development, as well as a Relax NG schema. When might we expect these?
>>>
>>>I'll be glad to lend a helping hand if possible to help accelerate the
>>>process.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Clay
>>
>>Terry Catapano
>>Special Collections Analyst/Librarian
>>Columbia University Libraries Digital Program
>>212-854-9942
>>[log in to unmask]
|