Many Hub contributors have invested in proprietary XML editing software such as XMetaL or Oxygen, but if you haven’t yet done so you might be interested in a free program called XML Copy Editor. It comes in Linux and Windows versions and makes it easy to validate EAD files. It’s also easy to associate style sheets such as the Hub’s so that you can get an impression of how your file will appear in a browser (which makes it a lot easier to proof-read). One feature I particularly liked was the ability to choose which browser to use for this: this is a failing in XMLSpy, which defaults to Internet Explorer (which then always crashes on my machine). I’ve never worked out how to change it to use Firefox (or any other browser), but it was easy to do that with XML Copy Editor.

Of course you don’t get all the functionality of the proprietary systems, but you are prompted as to which tags are valid at any point in the file, and there’s a handy special-character insertion menu, so if you don’t mind working with EAD tags visible, this looks like a good alternative to the paid-for options.

Picked up from Digitizationblog via the ArchivesBlogs aggregator.

I have been looking at the beta version of the new EAD schema today. This will eventually replace the DTD that we currently use to validate our EAD files. Usually when I investigate new standards and technologies, the way is fraught with problems, but this was almost indecently easy…..Actually, I should make clear that I mean easy to link to and validate some test documents. When it comes to actually thinking about making all of our Hub data validate to the schema, that may throw up far more issues. It seems that the main changes for us will be to do with the values for date ranges, the use of xlink to create links, and the need to change the repository code values (i’m still a little unclear about how this will actually work).

Isn’t it nice when something turns out to be far more straightforward than you thought it would be!

Got a chance to go beyond the hotel and meeting rooms today and paid a visit to the National Building Museum, which is housed in an amazing building, once the Pension Bureau (paying pensions to men who fought in the American Civil War). The museum’s exhibits used a good mixture of archives and artifacts. There was a hands-on part where you could try to build a brick wall using various different brick bonding patterns. Noticed the sign below on my way round the building, which made me think of EAD.