You might start by downloading MarcEdit. It comes with a number of XSL templates for converting MARCXML to various things, including EAD. You could start with one of those and tweak to suit your needs; also then you’d have a bunch of other scripts to look at as reference. See http://people.oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.php .
As far as forums go, this here EAD list is pretty darn good :) There is also the xsl email list . Its members have a range of expertise from beginner to XSL Deity (I think that’s the correct technical term…) See http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/ .
As for training, I don’t know where you’re located but MARAC is I think planning an XSL workshop for their fall conference in Richmond, VA. See http://www.marac.info/ . The w3c XSL tutorial is pretty good for the very basics, see http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/ . Its examples are mostly HTML, but really it doesn’t matter what you’re outputting, the rules and the logic are the same.
Michele
From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marsha Maguire
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2012 1:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Learning XSLT for simple EAD transformations?
Hello, all,
I'm a non-programmer who needs to use XSLT to do some conversions of selected fields in a batch of saved MARCXML records to EAD inventory descriptions (usually c02-level descriptions).. I've been trying to teach myself *basic* XSLT (using Jeni Tennison's Beginning XSLT book and a few websites), but most basic XSLT teaching resources understandably focus on converting XML to HTML. A lot of the books and online XSLT resources are out of date, too, or they're intended for programmers and way over my head (I have no idea how to use variables and parameters, but I can probably handle simple "if" and "choose" instructions).
I'm also trying to convert to simple EAD inventory descriptions a batch of files that were imported from a local database system as complex XML files with a very deep hierarchical structure. For these, I just need to pull out a little data, but of course, the data I need is many levels deep. Can anyone recommend basic and reasonably current forums or other websites that offer assistance with basic XSLT? I don't need to produce elegant, robust XSLT -- I'd be thrilled to be able to come up with clunky templates or for-each/value-of instructions that did the job -- I could strive for elegance later! I'd love to attend an SAA XSLT workshop but haven't been able to make it to any of them. Have any online or in-print instructional tools from those or any other reasonably pertinent workshops become available?
Is anyone else in the same boat -- are there other non-programmers out there who need to do some basic XML-to-EAD/XML conversions?
Many thanks!
Marsha Maguire
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