On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Marsha Maguire
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Hello, EAD XSLT experts and thank you so very much for your replies.
Richmond is very close, so I'll have to look into the MARAC workshop there, as well as the XSL e-list -- thank you, Michele! I love MarcEdit and used it to capture a test batch of MARC records, but as Michael Fox says, MarcEdit converts MARC to collection-level EAD. I want to convert MARC records for a few hundred early sound discs, most containing music, into c02-level inventory entries in a finding aid for a larger, multi-format collection. I'd like to capture some of the ID numbers in the MARC records: 050, 028, a link containing the 010 permalink in case users want to see the complete original MARC record, the 1XX main entry when it's there (not always), most of the 245 subfields (sometimes there are also uniform titles in 130/240 fields, and I'd like to carry those over, too), the 260 imprint info, the first 300 physical description field (there are often multiple 300 fields in these MARC records), and selected 5XX notes (511, and 500 notes that begin with a specific word). And the MARC 856 would map to EAD <extref> for linking to digital content.
I have all this mapped to EAD, and I know XSLT can do what I need, but I don't know how to put the XSLT instructions together or quite where to start. What's the first step -- create a template for the root of the MARCXML file and then use mostly xsl:for-each and xsl:value-of instructions? How does one override the XSLT default templates? Do I need to write a template for every possible node in the MARCXML records and then not activate the nodes I don't want (not use xsl:apply-templates on those nodes, i.e.)? Or something?
My other project involves converting XML records that have been auto-generated from an in-house database (I can't control what gets exported) into c02-level EAD descriptions. Some of the data I need is 8 or 9 levels of hierarchy deep in the source document, so I need to learn about XPath statements, right? Again, I think I need to override the XSLT default templates because I really only want a little data -- 6 or 7 fields -- in the converted output. I look at sites like W3 Schools (which almost seems too simple for what I need to do -- ?) and then stylesheets that begin by stating a bunch of variables (yikes!) and wonder if there is a happy medium to follow. Not sure how best to transform the docs while testing, either. I'm using XMLQuire to prepare the XSLT. To transform some very simple documents (XML to HTML, just a few elements), I was able to open the converted file in Internet Explorer 9, but can IE display a doc I've converted to XML? Maybe I need something like Saxon for that -- ?
You all are so generous with your time and expertise. I really do want to learn how to do this myself so i don't always have to ask people like you! Again, many thanks!
Marsha