XML and EAD: Getting started with using EAD

For today's project, we'll use EAD to mark up a finding aid for the Clarence Edmund Edmondson documents. The document we create will be based on the EAD template created by IU Archives, which is made using the EAD 2002 standard. As we work on marking up the finding aid for the Edmondson documents, we'll learn more about the various elements included in an EAD document and how they're used.

Getting ready to author an EAD document

Before working on an EAD document, it can be helpful to have the following things on hand ahead of time to make the editing process go more smoothly:

A copy of the appropriate EAD schema (or a link to where the schema document is hosted) for the version of EAD you're working with, so you can validate your work as you go. Following are links to the EAD 2002 and EAD3 schemas, in the XML Schema Language format:
- EAD 2002 XML Schema document
- EAD3 XML Schema document
A copy of the element list to refer to, so you can look up what specific elements and attributes are used for.
- The EADiva site has a well-formatted and easy-to-understand list of elements for EAD 2002 and EAD3.
Text content of the finding aid you're encoding, if possible, so you can copy/paste the relevant information into your EAD document as you go.

It's okay to look at existing EAD documents to help you out while building your own! Additionally, institutions may have their own EAD templates that you can use when creating EAD documents, or you can make your own EAD template with the elements needed to mark up multiple similar archives — so long as you understand what information goes in each element/attribute, you'll be good to go.

EADiva's element lists and the EAD 2002 Tag Library can be helpful when encountering an unfamiliar element, or when you need a refresher on what attributes an element can use. EAD is composed of many different elements and attributes, and it's impossible (or at the very least impractical) to memorize them all - so don't be afraid to rely on those resources. We'll be referencing EADiva's element list for EAD 2002 multiple times in the materials for today's session.

With these resources at hand, we're ready to set up our editing environment and start creating our EAD document.

Setting up the editing environment

At this point, let's go ahead and set up our XML editing environment so we're ready to create an EAD document. We'll be working in oXygen XML Editor today, but you can also make an EAD document in a text or code editor if you desire.

Open oXygen XML Editor.
To start the process of creating a new XML document, in the menu bar,
Click File, Click New...
To indicate we want to create an XML document, in the New dialog box,
Click , Click
To finish creating the new document, in the lower right corner of the New dialog box,
Click
To save the file we just created, in the menu bar,
Click File, Click Save
To name the file, in the File name field,
Press and Drag to select existing text, type: edmondson.xml
To finish saving the file, in the lower right corner of the Save as window,
Click

Building the basic structure of an EAD document

With a new document open, we're ready to start building the basic structure of our EAD document.

Since we chose XML as the file format when creating the new document, oXygen XML Editor added the XML declaration to the top of the file for us, so we don't have to worry about doing that ourselves. We'll start by adding a new line under the XML declaration, then we'll add the document element, <ead>. After that, we'll add the child elements for the two main sections of an EAD document, <eadheader> and <archdesc>.

To position the cursor properly, in the edmondson.xml document,
Click at the end of the first line of text, press: Enter key
To add the opening document element tag to edmondson.xml, on the keyboard, type:
<ead>Enter key Enter key</ead>

To add <eadheader> to the document, add the highlighted code to edmondson.xml:
```
<ead>
    <eadheader>
    
    </eadheader>
</ead>
```
Exiting code block.

To add <archdesc> to the document, add the highlighted code to edmondson.xml:
```
<ead>
    <eadheader>
    
    </eadheader>
    <archdesc>
    
    </archdesc>
</ead>
```
Exiting code block.

To save the file, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + S

At this point, we might consider associating the schema for EAD with the document we're creating — and if you're creating a document on your own, you can do that at the beginning of the document creation process if you desire. However, to avoid seeing near-constant errors as we create today's document, we'll associate the schema with the document at the end of the session.

Next, we'll populate the <eadheader> element with the information it needs to contain.

XML and EAD: Getting started with using EAD

Getting ready to author an EAD document

Setting up the editing environment

Step 1: Open oXygen XML editor and create a new document named edmonsdson.xml.

Building the basic structure of an EAD document

Step 1: Add the document element <ead> to edmondson.xml.

Step 2: Add the <eadheader> element to the document, inside the <ead> tags.

Step 3: Add the <archdesc> element to the document.

Step 4: Save the document.