Mike,
This is a really cool example - thank you for sending it! I think this
is very useful.
Jennie
Mike Ferrando wrote:
> Jennie,
> Here at LoC the EAD 2002 XML finding aids are rendered into PDF via
> XSL-FO using my stylesheet. (EAD_2002_fo-1.xsl) This was made
> possible by our best practices document (EAD group). Once a standard
> is created, it is much easier to generate other formats.
>
> EAD Help Pages has a blurb on our workflow:
> http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/implementors/LibraryofCongressFindingAidsProject.html
>
> You can see pdf samples of these on our site.
>
> Google: "library of congress" "finding aid" site:hdl.loc.gov
>
> There are number of points about PDF rendering from EAD 2002 XML that
> will interest all parties involved.
>
> 1. The HTML stylesheet that comes with the EAD 1.0 to 2002 conversion
> toolkit (EAD_2002_HTML_conv-1.xsl) is a sister stylesheet to the
> XSL-FO stylesheet. My design was to create a XSLT stylesheet based on
> the DTD that could be used for multiple markup languages. This has
> been a great success and is open to others to imitate the
> stylesheet's design.
>
> 2. At present, EAD coders can use this HTML stylesheet to see a close
> representation to what they will see in the PDF. This gives users a
> good idea of how they can code their finding aids for the best
> display. The TOC that is created in the HTML becomes bookmarks in the
> PDF. The user does not need to create @ids for the stylesheet to
> create links.
>
> 3. The metadata is take directly from the EAD 2002 XML document. In
> my division at least, I generate the EAD 2002 eadheader and some
> archdesc children directly from the collection level MARC record (via
> Z3950/marcslim xml : thanks Net Dev, et al.). This enables rich
> content to rise to a very high level and receive excellent presence
> on the web.
>
> 4. A single document enables full text searching. PDF readers have a
> number of great searching abilities.
>
> 5. Most of the other advantages of PDF format are simply its ability
> to be live across platforms, etc.
>
> 6. Security settings are available. Various metadata embedding is
> also possible.
>
> 7. In the very near future, 508 compliance can be attained by the PDF
> reader, without further formatting or restructuring the PDFs.
>
> We use XSL Formatter from Antenna House. This PDF renderer offers a
> wide range of unicode capabilities for embeding sundry character sets
> into your PDF document which can be searched, copied, and pasted at
> will.
>
> In any case, EAD 2002 XML rendered into PDF via XSL-FO is a
> benefitial relationship and prospering in many ways here at LoC.
>
> Mike Ferrando
> Library Technician
> Library of Congress
> Washington, DC
> 202-707-4454
>
> --- "Jennie A. Levine" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> That sounds like an excellent idea for a panel either at SAA or at
>> MARAC. Or even just a big discussion/brainstorming session.
>> Anyone
>> interested in thinking about it? :)
>>
>> Another aspect to all of this (at least for us) is wondering where
>> the
>> entry point will be to users entering our site from, say, Google,
>> and
>> making sure they can understand where they are. Since we don't
>> *really*
>> know how Google searches, although it seems to do some sort of link
>>
>> following, we can hope that finding aids such as the Carpenter one
>> I
>> mentioned earlier will be indexed by virtue of links being followed
>> and
>> picking up different "views" of a given finding aid. This is
>> something
>> I want to experiment with a little more.
>>
>> I also wonder if anyone has any experience with something like
>> XSL-FO,
>> which supposedly allows you to create fairly sophisticated print
>> versions of your finding aid, or to easily create PDFs from your
>> XML
>> file. I haven't tried to play around with Michael Fox's EAD to
>> XSL-FO
>> stylesheet
>> (http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/ead/stylesheets.html#foxproof)
>> -
>> has anyone else? I'm adding that to my "to do" list.
>>
>> I may be getting sort of off-topic here - it's hard to stay on
>> topic
>> because there are so many interesting "problems" here.
>>
>> Jennie
>>
>> L Rebecca Johnson Melvin wrote:
>>> Jennie, hi -
>>>
>>> I urge you to put together a MARAC session called "Elegant and
>> Seamless"
>>> - make it a discussion session with some invited leaders to
>> guide
>>> brainstorming over issues of length, hierarchies, stylesheets,
>>> navigation, etc. We all share the pain of large collections and
>> complex
>>> finding aids. :-)
>>>
>>> Rebecca (reading from home where I dare not open your Agnew
>> file)
>>> Jennie A. Levine wrote:
>>>> Michele,
>>>> I would be interested in responses to this as well, just as a
>> point of
>>>> discussion.
>>>>
>>>> We've had several similar scenarios and dealt with each one
>>>> differently. We have one collection where we try to show both
>> box and
>>>> reel locations by putting the reels and frames in the <physdesc>
>> tag
>>>> in the <c02> and <c03> levels as appropriate. I don't know how
>>>> "right" that is, but that worked with our style sheet. The
>> Guide to
>>>> the Papers of Djuna Barnes has about 2200 "rows"
>>>>
>>>>
> http://www.lib.umd.edu/archivesum/actions.DisplayEADDoc.do?source=/MdU.ead.litms.0021.xml&style=ead
>>>>
>>>> (for example)
>>>>
>>>> I do think that is difficult to read on a screen, or even on a
>>>> printout, and not lose your place. We are working on revising
>> our
>>>> style sheets to be more hierarchical in display to "solve" this
>>>> problem (it's pretty cool so far, actually, and I hope we'll be
>> able
>>>> to show people live in a month or so - it's similar to the James
>>>> Madison Carpenter Finding Aid found here -
>>>> http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/carpenter/browse.html), and maybe
>> change
>>>> the print versions to list things like Series and Subseries next
>> to
>>>> each item so that people can tell quickly where they are.
>>>>
>>>> Our Papers of Spiro T. Agnew guide is over 12,000 "rows" (only
>> open if
>>>> you are certain of your browser stability and Internet
>> connection...)
>>>>
> http://www.lib.umd.edu/archivesum/actions.DisplayEADDoc.do?source=/MdU.ead.litms.0021.xml&style=ead
>>>>
>>>> Series III, Subseries 5, which is even difficult to navigate to
>> in our
>>>> current stylesheet, is a PDF, just to try to keep the finding
>> aid from
>>>> crashing people's browsers. (You can do a "find" for "Subseries
>> 3.5:
>>>> to find the link).
>>>>
>>>> I really dislike the way we had to handle this - it just feels
>> awkward
>>>> to me. It wasn't too hard to make the PDF since all of our EAD
>> data is
>>>> in database form, but still it was an extra step I'd like to
>> avoid!
>>>> And I have seen other posts on this listserv with questions
>> about
>>>> elegant and seamless ways to break up finding aids and am not
>> sure if
>>>> anyone came up with any answers? If they did, I'd love to know!
>>>>
>>>> So, I don't have any answers - but I share your pain and am
>> interested
>>>> in solutions people might have.
>>>>
>>>> Jennie
>>>>
>> --
>> Jennie A. Levine
>> Curator for Historical Manuscripts
>> Archives and Manuscripts Department
>> Hornbake Library
>> University of Maryland
>> College Park, MD 20742
>> (301)314-2712
>> (301)314-2709 FAX
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>
>
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--
Jennie A. Levine
Curator for Historical Manuscripts
Archives and Manuscripts Department
Hornbake Library
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301)314-2712
(301)314-2709 FAX
[log in to unmask]
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