Mounting a Finding Aids Collection

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Main Page > Mounting Collections: Class-specific Steps > Mounting a Finding Aids Collection

This topic describes how to mount a Findaid Class collection.

Workshop materials are located at http://www.dlxs.org/training/workshop200707/findaidclass/fcoutline.html

Contents

Overview

To mount a Finding Aids Collection, you will need to complete the following steps:

  1. Prepare your data and set up a directory structure
  2. Validate and normalize your data
  3. Build the Index
  4. Mount the collection online


Examples of Findaid Class implementations and practices

This section contains links to public implementations of DLXS Findaid Class as well as documentation on workflow and implementation issues. If you are a member of DLXS and have a collection or resource you would like to add, or wish to add more information about your collection, please edit this page.

University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library Finding Aids
Out-of-the-box DLXS 13 implementation.
Overview of Bentley's workflow process for Finding Aids
See also the links in Practical EAD Encoding Issues for background on the Bentley EAD workflow and encoding practices
Unversity of Tennesee Special Collections Libraries
DLXS Findaid Class version ?
University of Pittsburgh, Historic Pittsburgh Finding Aids
DLXS Findaid Class version ?
Background on Pittsburgh Finding Aids workflow
University of Wisconsin, Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids
DLXS Findaid Class version ?
University of Minnesota Libraries, Online Finding Aids
DLXS Findaid Class version ?
EAD Implementation at the University of Minnesota
Getty Research Institute Special Collections Finding Aids
Heavily customized DLXS11a. Background on Getty customization and user interface changes to DLXS
J. Paul Getty Trust Institutional Archives Finding Aids
Heavily customized DLXS11a.

Overview of Data Preparation and Indexing Steps

Data Preparation

  1. Validate the files individually against the EAD 2002 DTD
    make validateeach
  2. Concatenate the files into one larger XML file
    make prepdocs
  3. Validate the concatenated file against the dlxsead2002 DTD:
    make validate
  4. Normalize the concatenated file.
    make norm
  5. Validate the normalized concatenated file against the dlxsead2002 DTD
    make validate

The end result of these steps is a file containing the concatenated EADs wrapped in a <COLL> element which validates against the dlxsead2002 and is ready for indexing: 

<COLL>
<ead><eadheader><eadid>1</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
<ead><eadheader><eadid>2</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
<ead><eadheader><eadid>3</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
</COLL>

WARNING! If there are extra characters or some other problem with the part of the program that strips out the xml declaration and the doctype declaration the file will end up like: 


<COLL>
baddata<ead><eadheader><eadid>1</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
baddata<ead><eadheader><eadid>2</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
baddata<ead><eadheader><eadid>3</eadid>...</eadheader>... content</ead>
</COLL>

In this case you will get "character data not allowed" or similar errors during the make validate step. You can troubleshoot by looking at the concatenated file and/or checking your original EADs.

Indexing

  1. make singledd indexes words for texts that have been concatenated into on large file for a collection.
  2. make xml indexes the XML structure by reading the DTD. Validates as it indexes.
  3. make post builds and indexes fabricated regions based on the XPAT queries stored in the workshopfa.extra.srch file.

Working with the EAD

Findaid Class Behaviors Overview

Preparing Data and Directories

Finding Aids Data Preparation

Building the Index

Working with Fabricated Regions in Findaid Class

Customizing Findaid Class

Mounting the Collection Online

Troubleshooting

General Techniques

Common Problems and Solutions

Title of Finding Aid does not show up

This is usually caused by the <origination> preceding the <unittitle> in the top level <did> element of your EAD

In the *.extra.srch file


comment out the following line:

(note that the region definitions are all on one line, but have been wrapped so they will be readable in the wiki) 


##
((region "<origination".."</unittitle>") 
within ((region did within region archdesc)
not within region dsc));
{exportfile "/l1/release/13/idx/s/samplefa/maintitle.rgn"}; 
 export; ~sync "maintitle";
##

copy the line but reverse the order of unittitle and origination 

##
((region "<unittitle".."</origination>") 
within ((region did within region archdesc)
not within region dsc));
{exportfile "/l1/release/13/idx/s/samplefa/maintitle.rgn"}; 
export; ~sync "maintitle";
##


  • make post errors
    • x
    • y

See also

Linking from Finding Aids Using ID Resolver

How do you do this?

Findaid Class is coded so that if there is an href attribute to the <dao> element, it will check to see if it contains the string "http". If it does, FindaidClass will not us ID Resolver, but will create a link based on the content of the href attribute of the <dao>. If there is no "http" string in the href attribute, FindaidClass assumes that the href attribute is actully an id and will look up that id in in the idresolver and build a link if it finds the ID in the IDRESOLVER table. The method FilterAllDaos_XML in $DLXSROOT/cgi/f/findaid/FindaidClass.pm can be overridden per collection if different behavior is needed.

If you decide to use this feature, you will want to modify the preprocessing script preparedocs.pl which out-of-the-box inserts the string 'dao-bhl-' after the href. Below is an example of a Bentley <dao> where the id number is 91153-1. 

<dao linktype="simple" href="91153-1" show="new" actuate="onrequest">
         <daodesc>
          <p>[view selected images]</p>
         </daodesc>
        </dao>

The preparedocs.pl program would change this to: 

<dao linktype="simple" href="dao-bhl-91153-1" show="new" actuate="onrequest">
         <daodesc>
          <p>[view selected images]</p>
         </daodesc>
        </dao>

The ID resolver would look up the id "dao-bhl-91153-1" and replace it with the appropriate URL.

ID Resolver Data Transformation and Deployment

The ID Resolver is a CGI that takes as input a unique identifier and returns a URI. It is used, for example, by Harper's Weekly to link the text pages in Text Class middleware to the image pages in the Image Class middleware, and vice versa.

Plug something like the following in to your web browser and you should get something back. If you choose to test middleware on a development machine that uses the id resolver, make sure that the middleware on that machine is calling the resolver on the machine with the data, and not the resolver on the production server.

Information on how to set up the ID resolver

</blockquote>

Workshop Materials

Working with the User Interface

General user interface customizations, such as changing rendering style (CSS) or making changes to the XSL are covered in Customizing the User Interface. Specific user-interface issues related to Findaid Class are discussed in the following sections:

  1. Customizing Findaid Class
    1. Working with the table of contents
  2. Working with Fabricated Regions in Findaid Class
  3. Common Problems and Solutions
    1. Title of Finding Aid does not show up



Findaid Class Graphics Files

Are there findaid class specific graphics files? The existing html docs actually point to a ../t/text/ directory and it appears that the graphics are generic and not at all specific to findaid class.

Findaid Class Processing Instructions

We decided that we could not maintain a list of class specific processing instructions so this section should probably be cut.



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