Good morning Susan,

My responses are below each of your inquires.

Plato L. Smith II, Digital Initiatives Librarian

Florida State University Libraries

Office: 850-644-3053/Cell 850-370-6849

-----Original Message-----
From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan Millard
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 11:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Technology behind finding aids

Hi All,

I'm working on a project to implement EAD at the State Library of Victoria in Australia. I was wondering if anyone has a few moments to give me a

quick rundown about what technology they are using for the storage and presentation of your finding aids?

[Plato Smith] We have an EAD publishing process of using our original EAD Finding Aids site http://www.lib.fsu.edu/dlmc/dlc/findingaids to view, edit, and double-check (checked by certified archivist) EAD Finding Aids before ingesting them into our new site http://digitool3.lib.fsu.edu/R/?func=collections-result&collection_id=1076 which is DigiTool 3.0 Digital Content Management System http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/digitool.htm).

1. Original site uses Drupal with a MySQL database and PHP scripting language (developed by former Web Development Librarian)

2. New site uses an Oracle 9i backend database with JBoss/Java API/CGI and RSS/CSS for display

3. The presentation of EAD Finding Aids are displayed in HTML, PDF, and raw XML.

4. Software used: NoteTab Light (free) http://www.notetab.com/, XML Spy (but there are many XML editors to select and do not advocate one over the other – totally based on your needs/uses/future expectations)

eg. Do you use a database, if so which one?

[Plato Smith] Drupal http://drupal.org/about (MySql & PHP) for original site and Oracle 9i database for new site (proprietary and bundled with DigiTool)

What do you use to index, transform, display?

[Plato Smith]

1. Index: Old site does not index and the new site uses a GUI search box, OCR of PDFs, and all search terms found anywhere in our collections including EAD finding aids/collection.

2. Transform: use Note Tab Light text editor to create EAD XML files and XML Spy/Apache FOP via XSL stylesheets to render HTML and PDF versions

3. Our publishing is not optimal and will be streamlined/enhanced in the future

Is it all linked to your Library Catalogue software if you are a library?

[Plato Smith] EXCELLENT question! We are in the process of developing the workflow to have all EAD Finding Aids from the new site in OPAC. We must coordinate with our Cataloging Department. This workflow will require collaboration between Digital Library Center, Special Collections, and Cataloging departments… “Communication is key”.

I have found some websites that have this info, but may be missing ones also.

I realise this is a fairly complex area, but a few pointers would be appreciated! If there is any documentation people can send, that would be

great too.

[Plato Smith] You may want to visit Univ. Minn. Libraries website https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/Staff/FindingAidsInEAD for additional ideas

Please send to [log in to unmask]

Thanks,

Susan

[Plato Smith] Hope this helps and contact me anytime.

Susan Millard

Project Manager

slv21 EAD Project

State Library of Victoria,

328 Swanston Street,

MELBOURNE, 3000

Ph: ( 61 3) 8664 7055

E-mail: [log in to unmask]