The Encoded Archival Description (EAD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids in XML. Agile Image Movers is developing a tool to aid in the conversion of textual documents to EAD files.
The Ead Conversion application is a proof of concept tool for converting a document describing the container list of a collection into an EAD XML document. It handles the necessary relationship between folders and boxes, and computes all of the containers used by each logical level of the collection.
It is a Java Web Start application you can run by clicking here. The same application run with full access to the web and your local system is here. The latter version is useful for opening documents on the web.
If clicking on the link above does not download and execute the application,
you will need to install Sun's Java plugin on your computer. It is available
for most systems (except for Mac's prior to OS 10) from
A User Guide is also available
This program reads two styles of input describing both the logical structure of a collection and the distribution of the collection in various containers and generates an EAD xml document. It also reads an intermediate spreadsheet format as well as taking valid EAD XML files and re-generating the container lists with xml parent/id relationships.
Here are two short examples of the two input formats. The second format requires that the first line be the column headings as shown.
[This format has items in the collection using columns: Folder Dates Title, with Box statements denoting a subseries. The date and column formats can be continued on the next line and the program is pretty good at reconstructing them.]Series I My collection Box 1 My Subseries FF1 1940-1947 Title of One item FF2 undated Title of another item Box 2 Another Subseries FF1 1948 Title of the third item[This format uses indentation of the title to denote logical structure, with columns: Title Box Folder. It is usually made from a Word table with three columns. The third item would have been one row in the table with the title continued onto a second line.]
Title Box Folder Series I My collection A logical level. box/folder columns empty Title of One item, 1940-1947 1 1 An addition logical level Title of another item, undated 2 Logical level 1 again Title of the third item, 1948 continued on another line 2 1 Title of a fourth item, 1987-1991 2
You may use EadConversion freely. However, since this is still a proof of concept application, it can and will change without notice. If you would like a snapshot of a particular version, please contact me. Any comments, bugs, observations, or wish list requests are welcome.
