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1st draft available for review: TARO schema-compliant encoding guidelines

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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).

Reminder: comments due by April15

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Friendly reminder! Comments due on this document with TARO’s mission, vision, and more due by April 15. Thanks!

The TARO Steering Committee has worked with Leigh Grinstead, TARO’s NEH Planning Grant Manager, to create the following  collection development document articulating TARO’s purpose, background, mission, vision, audience, project scope, participation criteria and more.

This document is an important beginning step toward formalizing TARO. Additional documents will also be developed, such as TARO Best Practices Guidelines, and we continue to explore organizational issues and new platform options.

We invite you to read this collection development document and send any comments by April 15
to the TARO listserv (taro-lib@utlists.utexas.edu)
or directly to the co-chairs and project manager:

Co-chairs:
Amanda Focke, Rice University, afocke@rice.edu &
Amy Bowman, Briscoe Center for American Studies, a.bowman@austin.utexas.edu

Project Manager for NEH Planning Grant:
Leigh Grinstead, Lyrasis, leigh.grinstead@lyrasis.org
Thanks,
Amanda

Want to see more details such as meeting minutes and more? Go to the TARO wiki.

Scheduling the transition to schema compliance in 2016

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Dear fellow TARO members,

Our progress towards updating TARO files to schema compliance continues.

Thanks to your participation in our Fall 2015 survey regarding your repositories’ methods for creating EAD finding aids, we have been able to group our TARO repositories into 3 groups for the purpose of scheduling each repository’s schema updates in 2016:

  • Group A includes repositories already creating schema compliant finding aids (for example those using collection management software which exports schema compliant EAD). This group would go through the schema transition first (Spring 2016).
  • Group B includes repositories creating dtd compliant finding aids with significant staff experience and workflow documentation. This group would go through the schema transition second, with assistance from members of the TARO team (timeframe to be determined).
  • Group C includes repositories creating dtd compliant finding aids with less staff experience and workflow documentation, as well as those who are close to creating dtd compliant finding aids and who need training or other support to get started. This group would go through the schema transition third, with assistance from members of the TARO team (timeframe to be determined).

About half of TARO repositories responded to the survey which allows us to sort repositories into these groups for planning purposes.
Our next step will be to follow up in the next two weeks with the repositories who did not respond so we can plan the year’s schema compliance work accordingly. We do realize that in some cases where repositories did not respond, the contact email we have could have been out of date, and we will do our best correct that situation.

Questions about this schema compliance planning process? Contact Amanda Focke at afocke@rice.edu.

Otherwise, stay tuned!
Thanks,
Amanda
TARO Steering Committee Co-chair
TARO blog for public news /  Wiki as working committee records