Hi Jane,

At the University of Illinois our system has been open to Google and
other bots for several years. Over 7,000 collection-level records and
several hundered full finding aids are routinely harvested by Google and
other bots. Our system is a PHP-driven database application, not static
HTML.

We have never run into an issue with server overload. I suspect it
would not be a problem for you, since server load is significantly
higher to serve up a PHP using our system than it would be to serve up
an equivalent page in static HTML.

Best,

Chris Prom
Fulbright Scholar
University of Dundee
United Kingdom

Jane Stevenson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> >>Basically what I'm trying to do is get away from creating static
> html pages to store on our server and just present the view and print
> options through xml and xsl.
>
> This has prompted me to think about a rather different question -
> we're actually thinking of creating static html pages in addition to
> our XSL generated pages because we want our descriptions to be exposed
> to Google. Alternatively we could create pre-generated searches. We
> don't just open up our system to robots due to problems with
> overloading the system. Has anyone had any experience of this kind of
> thing? It would be useful to get your thoughts.
>
> cheers,
> Jane.
>
> **************************************************************
> Jane Stevenson
>
> Archives Hub Co-ordinator
> Mimas
> University of Manchester
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk
>
>
>
>
> Fox, Michael wrote:
>> There is a proof of concept stylesheet on the EAD help pages that
>> does this, namely use XSL:FO to generate an XML document in
>> Formatting Objects syntax (XSL:FO) that an FO processor could
>> subsequently convert to PDF. If you use Oxygen, the necessary
>> tools (an XSLT engine and the FOP processor) are already bundled
>> in. I believe the same is true of the XML Spy software.
>>
>>
>>
>> There is also another stylesheet at the same location that goes from
>> EAD directly to WordML using a standard XSL transformation, though I
>> do not know if the syntax of this stylesheet still reflects
>> Microsoft's current schema for Word. After transformation, the
>> output can be opened directly in a recent version of Word and edited
>> or printed as required.
>>
>>
>>
>> In these scenarios, your EAD XML instance could truly serve as your
>> canonical version.
>>
>>
>>
>> Finally, there is another option with one of the EAD Cookbook
>> stylesheets that produces an HTML page that has no links and so could
>> be imported into Word and printed from there. A bit messier but far
>> easier to pull off.
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael Fox
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On
>> Behalf Of *Ethan Gruber
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:37 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: use of <otherfindaid> tag
>>
>>
>>
>> You can create XSLT stylesheets that contain Formatting Objects
>> specifications, and then serialize to PDF dynamically with calls to
>> the fop processor.
>>
>> Ethan
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Franks, Russell
>> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you Jane and Michele for the clarifications and thoughts.
>>
>> Michele, I like your method of generating a print page via the style
>> sheet. Is this done with javascript? Or is it an xsl template that
>> dynamically creates a new printer friendly page?
>>
>> Basically what I'm trying to do is get away from creating static html
>> pages to store on our server and just present the view and print
>> options through xml and xsl.
>>
>> Thanks - Russ
>>
>>
>> Russell Franks
>> Librarian
>> Special and Archival Collections
>> Phillips Memorial Library
>> Providence College
>> 1 Cunningham Square
>> Providence, RI 02918-0001
>> 401-865-2578
>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> http://www.providence.edu/archives
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Jane Stevenson
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 4:04 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>
>> Subject: Re: use of <otherfindaid> tag
>>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> We (our contributors) use <archref> to link to separately described
>> parts of a finding aid, such as
>> where a description is extremely large and benefits from being
>> divided up. This is in line with the
>> guidance: 'Examples of such materials include a record group and one
>> of its large series (which
>> might have separate EAD-encoded finding aids)'
>>
>> However, our contributors can also use it to link to other parts of
>> the same finding aid, which may
>> not be strictly within the guidelines, but it seems to be the best
>> choice for this.
>> http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/arch/archref.shtml. It is not totally
>> straightforward for us to
>> implement these links, due to the way the Archives Hub is set up as a
>> distributed system with
>> machine interfaces.
>>
>> We use <otherfindaid> to indicate other finding aids for the same
>> material:
>> http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/arch/other.shtml
>>
>> So that differs from linking to other finding aids that are related
>> but not representing the same
>> material. The guidelines do say that it is for 'Information about
>> additional or alternative guides
>> to the described material'. When contributors use this tag, they are
>> usually pointing to a more
>> detailed resource rather than the same content in a different format,
>> but I would assume that it
>> could be the same.
>>
>> Jane.
>>
>> **************************************************************
>> Jane Stevenson
>>
>> Archives Hub Co-ordinator
>> http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk
>>
>>
>> Michele R Combs wrote:
>> > My understanding of archref is that it's for links to other
>> collections of archival material. We
>> > use archref to link to related collections. For example, we would
>> use archref to link from the
>> > finding aid for the papers of John Smith Jr. to the finding aid
>> for the papers of his father,
>> > John Smith Sr., or the papers of his son, John Smith III.
>> >
>> > My understanding of otherfindaid is that it's for links to finding
>> aids that are different in
>> > content, not just in file format. For example, we might include
>> in the otherfindaid section a
>> > link to an Excel spreadsheet that provides a finer level of detail
>> for a set of John Smith Jr's
>> > photographs, or a link to a published catalog of John Smith Jr's
>> letters, or similar.
>> >
>> > To simply point to another version of the online finding aid, we
>> have a link at the top of each
>> > one that says "Printer friendly version." This link is generated
>> by our XSL style sheet and is
>> > not hard-coded into our EAD.
>> >
>> > Michele
>> >
>> > (be green - don't print this email!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Michele
>> Combs Manuscripts Librarian
>> > Special Collections Research Center Syracuse University Libraries
>> 222 Waverly Ave. Syracuse, NY
>> > 13244 315-443-2081 [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message----- From: Encoded Archival Description List
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf
>> > Of Franks, Russell Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:00 PM To:
>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: use
>> > of <otherfindaid> tag
>> >
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > Is anyone using the <otherfindaid> tag to describe or point to
>> another version of a finding aid,
>> > such as a PDF version of the finding aid for patrons to dl or print?
>> >
>> > According to the tag library <otherfindaid> "is used to indicate
>> the existence of additional
>> > finding aids;" and that "The <archref> element may be used to give
>> a formal citation to the other
>> > finding aid or to link to an online version of it."
>> >
>> > It doesn't appear that the <otherfindaid> tag is limited to other
>> finding aids created by
>> > differing institutions or to legacy versions of the same finding aid.
>> >
>> > Also do I have to use the <archref> tag to link to the PDF? Since
>> the PDF version of the finding
>> > aid is not "separately described archival materials of special
>> interest", it seems to me that the
>> > use of the <extref> would be better suited for this purpose.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance for your thoughts -
>> >
>> > Russell Franks Librarian Special and Archival Collections Phillips
>> Memorial Library Providence
>> > College 1 Cunningham Square Providence, RI 02918-0001 401-865-2578
>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> > [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> http://www.providence.edu/archives
>> >
>>
>>
>>


--
Chris Prom
Assistant University Archivist
University of Illinois Archives

Please note I am on sabbatical at the University of Dundee during the 2009-10 academic year