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.