Volunteers Needed! Exciting Opportunities to Assist TARO

If you work at a TARO-member institution, you have an opportunity to help with important and exciting work ahead for TARO! Over the next three years, volunteers will be contributing to supporting the success of TARO’s recently-awarded NEH grant. The grant will entail substantial changes to TARO, chiefly: a redesign of its web platform to improve functionality and appearance, a review of EAD3 encoding standards, working towards standardizing existing control access terms (subject headings, geographic names), and further training for TARO members in contributing finding aids.

So how can you help? TARO has five subcommittees that will assist with this grant work. The following subcommittees are looking for new members: Outreach/Education, Standards, and Technology/Website. Information about each subcommittee and its current chairs and co-chairs is available here.

We are looking for people with an interest in any of these areas (no expertise is required!) to become a member of a subcommittee. The amount of time you have available for this work will always be a good fit—there are no specific time commitments involved. Our subcommittees will be providing support to two positions hired through the grant (an applications developer and a metadata librarian) and will have specific tasks assigned to them. Grant activities will be led by an already-staffed Grant subcommittee and the TARO Steering Committee.

Contact the subcommittee chair/co-chairs to express interest in joining one of our subcommittees. Now is the time to gain experience in grant work on a manageable scale for you, and at the same time make a meaningful contribution to the vitality of TARO!

Update on schema conversion Summer 2016

Fellow TARO folks,

We are wrapping up schema conversion for repositories who already create schema-compliant EAD using ArchivesSpace and Archon (known as “Group A”).
Directions for those repositories are online at TARO Today blog (using Archon, and using ArchivesSpace).

We have begun working individually with the hand encoders known as “Group B,” as listed below.
San Jacinto Museum of History was converted last week and the process went smoothly.
Updated instructions for working with TARO-friendly EAD are available here.

Below is the schedule for Group B, with Group C following in early 2017.
Basic info on how the conversion process works and which group each repository is in

Thanks, everyone!
Amanda Focke, TARO Steering Committee co-chair

account repository Conversion Date
sjmh San Jacinto Museum of History (Oxygen) July 12-14
tslac Texas State Library and Archives Commission (Oxygen) July 26-27
swcpc Texas Tech University, (Oxygen) August 2-4
tturb Texas Tech University, Rare Books (Oxygen) August 2-4
ttusw Texas Tech University, Southwest Collection (Oxygen) August 2-4
ttuua Texas Tech University, University Archives (Oxygen) August 2-4
ttuav Texas Tech University, Audio Visual (Oxygen) August 2-4
utlac The University of Texas at Austin. Benson Latin American Collection (Oxygen) August 16-18
utlsc H.J. Lutcher Stark Center, University of Texas at Austin (Notepad++) August 30-Sept 1
uttyler University Archives and Special Collections The University of Texas at Tyler (limbo between Archon/AS) August 30-Sept 1
utsa University of Texas San Antonio (Oxygen) August 30-Sept 1
tsusm Texas State University (Oxygen) Sept 13-Sept 15
dalpub Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library (NoteTab) Sept 13-Sept 15
utlaw Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin (Oxygen) Sept 13-Sept 15
utmb Truman G. Blocker, Jr. History of Medicine Collections, Moody Medical Library, University of Texas Medical Branch (Oxygen) Sept 27-Sept 29
smu Southern Methodist University (Oxygen) Sept 27-Sept 29
hamtmc Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, John P. McGovern Historical Collections and Research Center (Oxygen) Sept 27-Sept 29
apts Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (Notepad++) Oct 11-Oct 13
aushc Austin History Center, Austin Public Library (NoteTab) Oct 11-Oct 13
utarl University of Texas Arlington Library, Special Collections (XMetal) Oct 25 – Oct 27
uthrc Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin(Oxygen) Nov 8 – Nov 10
drtsa Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo (Oxygen) Nov 29 – Dec 1
houpub Houston Public Library, Houston Metropolitan Research Center (limbo between AT/AS) Nov 29 – Dec 1
utcah The University of Texas at Austin. Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (Oxygen) Dec 13 – Dec 15

Summer update on schema conversion progress

Fellow TARO participants,

Here’s an update for you on our schema conversion progress. Generally speaking, the work is going well.

A big thank you to Minnie Rangel at UT Libraries for her work on this! And many thanks to the repositories going through this process with such good cheer. This is an important step forward for TARO.

We had hoped to finish Groups A, B and C before the end of the calendar year. Groups A and B will meet that timeline.
It is looking like Group C will need to be converted in very early 2017.
Which repositories are in which groups and how does this work?

All of our “Group A” repositories (those using software that exports XML such as Archon, ArchivistsToolkit, or ArchivesSpace) have had their existing files converted to schema format. Almost all of them have corrected the very minor errors which popped up.
These repositories are refining their workflows for submitting schema compliant & TARO friendly files now.
ArchivesSpace users are up and running, using the ArchivesSpace guidelines on the TARO Today blog.
We are working on similar how-to info for Archon, ArchivistsToolkit, CuadraStar users, which will then also be published and announced.
(Note: It was discovered that CuadraStar exports dtd-XML, not schema, so they will have a slightly different process.)
All will be keeping in mind the new TARO Standards / Best Practices Guidelines.

Our “Group B” repositories of hand-encoders are starting to be converted now.
These folks using XML editors such as Oxygen and XMetal, or other tools such as Notepad ++, will be making use of the new TARO Standards / Best Practices Guidelines (which also include XML templates, very handy for hand-encoders).

The first to be converted in this group will be:

  • San Jacinto Museum of History – Oxygen users –  July 12-14
  • Texas State Library and Archives Commission – Oxygen users – July 26-27
  • Texas Tech University Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library – Oxygen users – August 2-4
  • The University of Texas at Austin. Benson Latin American Collection – Oxygen users – August 16-18

The remaining Group B repositories are still being scheduled and will be contacted soon individually regarding their proposed dates.
Group C folks will likely be in early 2017.

Stay tuned for updates on this conversion work as the summer goes along, as well as our NEH planning grant final reports coming out later this summer.