On behalf of Rebecca Romanchuk and Carla Alvarez, TARO Standards Committee co-chairs, please read the following asking for your feedback on the new schema-compliant encoding guidelines, which will be used by all TARO repositories after each repository is converted to schema compliance later this year.
Please know that doing your conversion, you will have one–on–one contact with a TARO volunteer to help you get started submitting finding aids in schema format using these guidelines, but we welcome your feedback on the guidelines now. ___________________________________________________________________________The TARO Standards subcommittee is pleased to announce that we have completed our first draft of the EAD 2002 Schema Best Practice Guidelines for TARO!
Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO), Texas’ EAD finding aid consortial site – https://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/, is in the midst of an NEH planning grant to develop improved systems and updated standards for TARO as it achieves sustainability to serve the archival research community into the future. Part of this work is to create new encoding guidelines for TARO repositories that conform to the EAD 2002 Schema encoding standard, which TARO will complete conversion to in 2016. These best practice guidelines (BPG) are available as a PDF at http://bit.ly/1Wk6p6W. The BPG appendices are a TARO-friendly sample Schema-compliant template for EAD encoding for your use, and an EAD finding aid ex ample. These appendices are also available at the same link as XML files.
We welcome feedback addressing every aspect of our BPG.
Go to http://goo.gl/forms/gaJXiCVtp4 to complete a brief survey to give us your ideas for how the BPG can better address your needs for EAD encoding. The survey is configured to adapt its questions depending on whether your repository is a TARO member, or if you are in Texas and have not yet joined TARO, or if you are outside of Texas and want to give us your general feedback.
Please complete the survey by Friday, June 3, 2016.
If you encode for TARO, we need to hear from you. The BPG, which will be a key tool for TARO participants, offers detailed guidance on creating EAD XML files. Even participants who export XML from software such as ArchivesSpace (and don’t see the raw XML) will need to follow TARO protocols as described in the BPG, such as formatting the <eadid>. You will need to follow the BPG in order to submit your Schema-compliant files to TARO, which each repository will be required to do by the end of 2016.
The co-chairs of the TARO Standards subcommittee extend sincere thanks to its members for their superb contributions to the BPG. Invaluable support has been provided during our drafting process by TARO Steering Committee co-chairs Amanda Focke and Amy Bowman, UT Libraries TARO technical support staff Minnie Rangel, and our NEH planning grant project manager Leigh Grinstead and grant consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell. We are also grateful to the EAD consortial community at large for the encoding documentation they make available online, in particular Online Archive of California and Archives West, which are models that have guided us.
Cordially,
Carla Alvarez, MA, CA (co-chair – TARO Standards subcommittee)
Rare Books and Manuscripts
Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection
University of Texas at Austin
Rebecca Romanchuk, MLIS, CA (co-chair – TARO Standards subcommittee)
Team Lead, Archives / Archivist II
Archives and Information Services
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
TARO Standards subcommittee members:
Maristella Feustle (UNT-Music Library),
Cynthia Franco (SMU-DeGolyer Library),
Molly Hults (Austin Public Library-Austin History Center),
Benna Vaughan (Baylor University-Texas Collection),
Jeffrey Warner (Rice University-Woodson Research Center).
