Ead McTaggart: Using VBA to Automate EAD Container List Tagging
Randall Miles · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · 2009
Faced with the prospect of converting 200-page container lists to Encoded Archival Description (EAD), the author programmed a Microsoft Access® database using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to automatically insert the necessary EAD tags and their attributes. Some work is still required to ensure that the container list is properly formatted before importing into the database. Once formatted, the database, named Ead McTaggart, will convert a 7,000 line Microsoft Excel® container list, where each line represents a series, sub-series, or folder title, into a properly tagged EAD container list in about five minutes. As written, Ead McTaggart will handle up to six component levels, but can be modified to handle more. Although many institutions use Archivists' Toolkit or Archon for this functionality, many libraries and archives who have not implemented those tools will find that EAD McTaggert minimizes the work of converting existing container lists to EAD finding aids with a low time investment for implementation.