I looked briefly at the evaluation version of the software available from
their website in early July. From our point of view, the most obvious lack
of functionality was the inability to import any pre-keyed EAD instances. I
approached their technical support with this observation and received the
following reply which may be of interest:
"The product was originally designed as a tool for creating new
finding aids conforming to the EAD-DTD. However, there has been
significant interest in importing from other sources. We are in the
process of designing and coding other modules that will do that. One
module will allow import from an electronic document already encoded
in EAD. While at first this appears to be of little worth, it will
allow archivists to utilize IA<EAD>'s ability to generate other
formats. We expect this module to be complete by the end of this
calendar year. The next module will allow paper documents to be
scanned and OCRed and then imported. The time frame for the second
module is sometime mid 1999."
==============
Matthew Hillyard
Public Record Office
Kew, Richmond
SURREY TW9 4DU
UK
[log in to unmask]
========================
> ----------
> From: Jim Cross
> Reply To: Encoded Archival Description List
> Sent: 12 August 1998 16:37
> To: Multiple recipients of list EAD
> Subject: Internet Archivist--evaluations
>
> I have been asked by my library's administration here at Clemson
> University
> to post a query concerning Internet Archivist <EAD> by Interface
> Electronics, Inc. Essentially we are interested in a *short* evaluation of
> the software by those institutions who are currently using it. Among the
> things we would like to know are:
>
> What are the strengths of this product?
>
> What are its weaknesses and/or limitations?
>
> How responsive has the company been in making changes and corrections to
> the software that you (or others) have suggested?
>
> How would you evaluate the company's technical support?
>
> How would you evaluate the product overall, especially compared to other
> SGML editing software that is available?
>
> Of course, feel free to include anything else you would like to say about
> the product. I appreciate any help you would be able to give me with this.
> Thank you.
>
> Jim Cross
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> James Edward Cross
> Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries
> Strom Thurmond Institute Building, Box 343001
> Clemson, South Carolina 29634-3001
> Phone: (864) 656-5182 Fax: (864) 656-0233
> [log in to unmask]
> Visit our website at http://www.lib.clemson.edu/
>
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