This post will be relatively short because I already wrote it once, after which it was immediately lost to the Internet ether when Blogger went down briefly (and didn't auto save my draft! Bad Blogger!). Here's a quick recap.
My main task this week was to continue encoding a sample finding aid in EAD using the oXygen text editor. Joanna and I each chose f.a.'s from the Iowa Women's Archive to mark up separately, after which we will compare notes and try to come up with an EAD template that can be used for all future finding aids. The next step after that will be to figure out how to plug the template into Archon.
The encoding has been a slow process, because we're using EAD samples we've found online to guide us and they're all a little different. Thus, there is a lot of revision and backtracking as we go. We've learned that EAD is pretty flexible and provides a lot of room for customization. At the same time, this can make it seem somewhat ambiguous and confusing. But I feel I'm making definite progress, and am learning a lot by getting my hands dirty with the actual encoding.
