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Matt –

That’s exactly the spreadsheet that AFC used and modified. I tried to attach our modifications, but I guess the attachment didn’t come through.

I can attest to its usefulness.

Thanks, Matt!

- Bert

Bertram Lyons, CA
Digital Assets Manager / Folklife Specialist
American Folklife Center
Library of Congress
www.loc.gov/folklife<http://www.loc.gov/folklife>

From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matt Herbison
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 3:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Excel-to-EAD scripts, macros, whatever

This Excel spreadsheet (link below) has been helpful in converting container lists (new ones or legacy lists) to EAD.  It is very low-tech and relies on entering/pasting container lists into Excel then copy-pasting two chunks of text into a text document to get the EAD.
We use it now instead of entering container lists into Archivists' Toolkit since it's much faster than AT's rapid data entry.

It supports up to 4 levels of container list hierarchy and dates (single expression, begin/end, bulk begin/end).
It's best for quick creation of EAD container lists but doesn't handle the biog/hist note or scope & contents note (since we add those in the AT interface)

http://clir.pacscl.org/2012/03/19/excel-to-xml-the-spreadsheet-from-heaven/
(This describes a use case and has links to a users guide and the spreadsheet itself.)

I haven't revamped it in a while, but if people have any interest in my tweaking it to handle front matter (or other "features"), let me know.  -Matt

Matt Herbison
Drexel Med School Archives, Philly


On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 2:18 PM, Custer, Mark <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I’d love to see your approach with this, Greg.  My email is [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>, if you wouldn’t mind sending those files along sometime.

I’ve been using BaseX for about the past year now, just on my desktop, but I think that it’s amazing (and I’m finally starting to appreciate XQuery a lot more)!  In fact, I’m hoping that before the end of the year I’ll find some time to work on a EAD/EAC/TEI system that uses BaseX on the server as a proof of concept.

Mark



From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Wiedeman, Gregory
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 2:08 PM

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Excel-to-EAD scripts, macros, whatever

Using mail merge is the most common method, although I find there is sometimes issues with Excel’s formatting.

The method I use is a basic XML schema mapped to an Excel workbook. This lets you enter all of the collection data—including front matter, collection hierarchy etc.—and then save it as an XML file without any formatting. Then I use an XQuery script running with BaseX on a desktop that turns it all into EAD. I hope to run the script on a server so that all you would have to do is save the spreadsheet as XML on the server and it would just pop out as valid EAD. I’m writing it up for publication but it still needs documentation and smoothing out some of the less-common ways we do things here. I can send the Excel workbook and the script if anyone is interested.

Hope this helps,
Greg

Gregory Wiedeman
Project Archivist
M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives
University at Albany, SUNY
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Callahan, Maureen
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 12:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Excel-to-EAD scripts, macros, whatever

If you have access to oXygen, you can also do this there with an xslt. I wrote a tutorial about how to do this here: http://icantiemyownshoes.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/tutorial-how-to-turn-a-spreadsheet-into-the-contents-list-of-an-ead-encoded-finding-aid/

I’ve also done the MS Word mail merge thing before and it totally works – I found that I’ve sometimes run into performance problems, though, if I’m working with a file with a lot of rows.

Maureen

Maureen Callahan
Archivist, Metadata Specialist
Manuscripts & Archives
Yale University Library
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
203.432.3627<tel:203.432.3627>

Webpage: web.library.yale.edu/mssa<http://web.library.yale.edu/mssa>
Collections: drs.library.yale.edu<http://drs.library.yale.edu>

From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Perkes
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 12:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Excel-to-EAD scripts, macros, whatever

You can use Excel as the data source for Word's mail merge function. Put the XML wrappers in Word with placeholders for the fields defined in Excel, run the merge, delete section breaks, and paste into your EAD document.

Elizabeth Perkes
Electronic Records Archivist
Utah State Archives
346 South Rio Grande
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
801-531-3852<tel:801-531-3852>
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Michele R Combs <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hi guys --

I seem to recall someone, or perhaps several someones, mentioning on this list that they had macros or scripts or something to convert collection inventories in Excel to EAD.  Yes?

Michele
+++++++++++++++
Michele Combs
Lead Archivist
Special Collections Research Center
Syracuse University Libraries
315-443-2081<tel:315-443-2081>
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
scrc.syr.edu<http://scrc.syr.edu>