The TARO ProjectTexas Archival Resources Online

Fred GilmoreSr Operating Systems SpecialistUT Austin General Librariesfgilmore@mail.utexas.edu

April 30, 2004

What It Is . . .

A project to make Texas archive and manuscript collection finding aids available through the Web.

“finding aid”: descriptive summary and inventory of a material collection housed at a specific archive; not the materials themselves.

Currently: 1500+ searchable, browsable finding aids, 5000+ hits / day

How it came to be . . .

Two grant funded phases:– Outsourced scanning, OCR, XML tagging of

existing paper finding aids– Training/hardware/software for creation of

new finding aids – Phase I (2000 – 2001) : 14 participating

repositories– Phase II (2002 – 2003) : additional 11

repositories

Participating Repositories Alexander Architectural Archive

(UT Austin) Center For American History

(UT Austin) Benson Latin America

Collection (UT Austin) Ransom Humanities Research

Center (UT Austin) Texas State Library Texas Tech Southwest

Collection/University Archives University of Houston Special

Collections/University Archives Rice University Texas A&M

Houston Public Library Austin History Center UT San Antonio Texas State University Southern Methodist University UT Medical Branch – Galveston MD Anderson UT El Paso UT Pan American UT Arlington

How It Came To Be . . .

Why XML?– Compose once, format many– XML and related standards make data

exchange/reuse, description easier through separation.

Creating content for TARO

Archives staff:– Edit or compose XML tagged electronic

version of finding aid (new finding aids are created using text/XML editor such as Corel XMetaL)

– Submit file to UT Austin server

.

.<unittitle label="Title:" encodinganalog="245$a">Thomas J. Rollins Papers,<unitdate type="inclusive" encodinganalog="245$f" label="Dates:"

era="ce" calendar="gregorian">1875-1997 and undated</unitdate></unittitle><abstract label="Abstract:" encodinganalog="520$a">The personal papers of Thomas J. Rollins from 1875-1997 and

undated.</abstract><unitid countrycode="us" repositorycode="TxLT-SW"

encodinganalog="099" label="Collection #">S 1261.1</unitid><repository label="Repository:" encodinganalog="852$a"><corpname><subarea>Southwest Collection/Special Collections

Library,</subarea>..

Creating Content For TARO

UT Austin technical staff:– XML file is moved into production, error

checked, translated into three HTML varieties for viewing.

– HTML content is indexed for searching (keyword and fielded), sorted into repository lists for browsing

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw/00054/tsw-00054.html

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ttusw/00054/tsw-00054.html

Advantages

Pages picked up by Google and give content higher visibility.

Multiple views of content including ability to customize view by running the XML document against a personal stylesheet.

Processing fully automated. HTML translated files can be available within hours.

DC metadata and OAI records provide additional access points.

Challenges

Relationships– Mediating local needs with federated site

requirements.– Encouraging supplemental metadata creation.

Resources– Introducing improvements without dedicated

staff on either end.

Challenges

Realities of the Web– User education. Practically a meta-site.

Content expectations not met.– Finding aids can be large. Load times a

problem.– XML Unicode requirements make special

characters tricky.

Future Plans

Searching: search XML directly Content: fund the creation, serving of

pictures, sound, video Participation: more repositories = more

content Access: Open Archives, RDF metadata Flexibility: provide stylesheet for direct XML

browsing, PDF creation for hardcopy