Washington University Libraries
Department of Special Collections
Manuscript Division

EAD/APEX CONVERSION GUIDELINES

  1. Copy the original .sgml document to a work folder of your choice and change extension to .xml
  2. Using textpad, cut and paste from the read-only template.xml to replace SGML header with XML header.
  3. Check eadid. Change phrase "SGML catalog" to "XML catalog". Check to see that the unitid takes the form of "WTU-MSS-########". The # s stand for the OCLC accession number of the earliest record done for the collection (You find the OCLC accession number by doing an author search in the OCLC database (reachable from the library's front page). There may be more that one record for each collection, however if there is, use the record with the earliest date.
  4. Make sure that " The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation" appears within the
  5. Delete tag with all the information contained within it.
  6. Replace with from template.xml.
  7. Open file in EPIC publisher (this is done as a quick kludge to get a an error list of the .sgml entities used in the documents.)
  8. Note the entities that have been indicated as errors by EPIC. Almost always they will be one of the following:
    • Right Quote: ”
    • Left Quote: “
    • Ampersand: &
    • Apostrophe: '
    These entities should to be changed to numeric character references.While it is for HTML documents, a useful short list of hexadecimal values can be found on the W3C pages at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html#h-24.4.1
  9. Close the file in EPIC and open it up in TextPad. Carefully do global transforms on the entities in the document. Close out of TextPad.
  10. Open the file in EPIC again. Go to File drop down, choose "Save As". Make sure XML files is chosen in "Save as type" box. Enter the name of the file you are currently working on in "File name" box. Hit the save button. Click on the box with the green check over a page in the button bar in order to see if the file parses. If no error messages remain, go to 5. If not, retry above steps. If the file still doesn't parse, take down the error messages and pass file on to Chatham.
  11. Check high level did. Is the punctuated properly and in the form of <unittitle>Jane Roe Papers, </unittitle><unitdate>1977-1998</unitdate>. Does the <unitid> take the form "WTU-MSS-########".
  12. Check for misplaced <admininfo>. Compare tag order to template.xml.
  13. Check for <scopecontent> note. Is there one? Is the material that is supposed to be there in an <add>?
  14. Replace structure of <admininfo> with template. Fill in template information. This includes processing date, source, and address of copyright holder in major portion of the collection.
  15. Remove <dsc type="analyticover">
  16. Add headings to <admininfo> , <scopecontent>, <bioghist>,
  17. Fix container listings. Change containers to box/folder listings. Make sure that container information appears at <c01> and <c02> levels.
  18. Go to online version of collection record on the MSS pages. Place entries in that record in tags within <controlaccess> at the top level of the finding-