[Metadatalibrarians] Crosswalks and tools for metadata librarians

[Nancy Fallgren]

Hi Clay,

Trac with the subversion repository looks as though it would fit the task.  

Thanks!
-Nancy

 
Nancy Fallgren
Digital Access/Metadata Librarian
Milton S. Eisenhower Library
Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD  21218
nfallgren at jhu.edu
phone: 410-516-7757


>>> Clay Redding <clay at monarchos.com> 8/16/2008 9:03 PM >>>
Hi Tim,

A shared source of tools was actually an initial reason I started the  
listserv.  One of the first discussions was about using XSLTs as a  
functional map of sorts, i.e. a crosswalk.  I think the only reason I  
never started it was that we might eventually need best practices,  
such as selecting one flavor of XSLT over another, like XSLT 2.0  
instead of 1.0.  Also, whether or not to include things like XQuery,  
or other scripting languages like Perl, Python, Ruby and the like.

At any rate, now that the iron is hot, I'll throw caution to the  
wind.  I'm willing to setup some sort of space as an extension of the  
main listserv web site.  As Teressa mentioned, this could range  
anywhere from a blog to a Wiki and Subversion.  Would Trac [1], which  
is a Wiki that can allow for viewing a Subversion repository do the  
job for this task?

[1] http://trac.edgewall.org/ 

On Aug 15, 2008, at 12:19 PM, Timothy Lepczyk wrote:

> Is there any interest to create a project using Google Code to share
> xslt's, useful information, and troubleshooting?
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>
>
> Timothy A. Lepczyk
> Metadata Librarian
> Digital Library Services
> Washington University Libraries
> Campus Box 1061
> One Brookings Drive
> St. Louis, MO 63130
>
> Tel: 314.935.8934
> Email: tlepczyk at wustl.edu 
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: metadatalibrarians-bounces at lists.monarchos.com 
> [mailto:metadatalibrarians-bounces at lists.monarchos.com] On Behalf Of
> Greta de Groat
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 10:46 AM
> To: metadatalibrarians at lists.monarchos.com 
> Subject: Re: [Metadatalibrarians] Metadatalibrarians Digest, Vol 50,
> Issue 9
>
> metadatalibrarians-request at lists.monarchos.com wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> I took this course http://www.amigos.org/?q=node/698 through Amigos
> and
>> it was great.  I learned a lot that I've been able to apply directly.
>> Also, lately I've been using the XSLT Cookbook 2.0 as a reference.
>>
>>
> Does anyone offer something similar online?  I'm also finding that the
> XSLT instructional materials and training seem to be geared towards
> other purposes and it's hard to tease out the bits that are useful for
> our purposes.  Which brings up the larger training issue.  In chatting
> with colleagues, i'm finding that that there are lots of times when
> skills like this come in handy, but it's difficult to find training
> geared towards our specific needs.  It's not like we're going to go  
> back
>
> to school to learn how to be programmers at this point in our careers,
> but we do need some degree of programming skills.  Look at the job
> advertisements for metadata librarians or digital librarians.   A  
> lot of
>
> us who have been working as traditional librarians feel completely  
> shut
> out of these jobs because we don't have the specific skills asked for.
> Speaking from a cataloger's viewpoint, we're hearing folks like Karen
> Calhoun (as well as the training coming out from the Catalogers'
> Learning Workshop) that our skills will be needed to manage digital
> projects and do mapping and that sort of thing, and that we'll be
> working with programmers.  But realistically, programmers aren't  
> always
> available.  It may be easy for a cataloger to transition to creating
> metadata records or managing others who are creating them, but we may
> also need to know how to create valid files of records,  
> troubleshooting
> XSLT tranformations, Perl scripting, OAI protocols, mashups, MySQL,
> XQuery, SRU, and it looks like RDF is coming on fast.   And when it
> comes up, we need to know it right now.   Where can we get this  
> kind of
> "just in time" training geared toward the specific needs we have?  The
> W3 tutorials only go so far.  And asking questions on the blogs that
> programmers frequent often gets you answers that you don't have the
> technical expertise to even understand, much less implement.
>>
>> I'd really like to have a "library" of XSLT scripts used by metadata
>> librarians, so we can share/pool our scripts, re-use bits and pieces
> as
>> needed, and share tips.
>>
>>
> I think this is a great idea.  Where could such a thing be housed?  It
> would also be nice to have a place to ask questions.  For example, the
> question i asked the other day about splitting LCSH headings.  Can i
> split a field at the dashes and separately tag each piece using XSLT?
> (ok, it's probably too much to ask to have the pieces tagged
> *correctly*, but even getting them split would be a step forward).
>>
>> I'd like to second/third/fourth MarcEdit. It's a great tool. It was
> very
>> helpful for me to be able to see the before & after of the
>> transformations.
>>
>>
> This is a great tool, but again, if you don't have troubleshooting
> skills, you have no way of knowing why your transform failed.and  
> what to
>
> do about it.  Was there a problem of some sort with the style  
> sheet?  Do
>
> you have a namespace problem?  Was the source file invalid?  Was it
> invalid because it was invalid Dublin Core or MODS or whatever or
> because it was invalid XML?   I'm sure there are other problems that i
> can't even imagine.
>
> Greta de Groat
> Stanford University Libraries
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