ENRICH Project: Migration to the ENRICH Specification

A part of the ENRICH project is working out satisfactory migration routes for a number of different data formats to the ENRICH specification. The case studies undertaken for this were for MASTER records and Bodleian EAD records. The target data format, the ENRICH Specification, is described in its reference manual: ENRICH reference Manual (also available as PDF). Training material has also been provided at: ENRICH Training Slides. The results of any migration should validate against the ENRICH schema: ENRICH schema as DTD, Relax NG (compact), Relax NG (XML), and XSD.

The ENRICH project has produced a Report on the Development and Validation of Migration Tools (also as PDF) within the project. This includes a more detailed discussion of the methodology and recommendations arising out of these case studies.

Recommendations for Migration Routes

  1. If possible use technologies that are mature, open source, cross-platform, human-readable, text-based scripting languages with well-developed support options.
  2. Methodology for migration should be modular and take multiple forms, at least building both against the specified data format and a testbed representative sample of the data to be migrated.
  3. Additional testing of the output should be done by targeted searches of the output data and proofreading a statistically significant randomly-selected sample. Any errors should be corrected in the migration tool and the conversion re-run from the start.
  4. With migration to the ENRICH specification there are three approaches:
    • Archive-specific migration route: this is best done with human interaction customising the available scripts to the specifics of the data format. ENRICH partners can contact enrich@oucs.ox.ac.uk to discuss one's conversion needs. Non-ENRICH partners can also contact us as above, and we will attempt to assist on a best-effort (or optionally consultation) basis.
    • Self-guided migration route: those with sufficient XSLT experience available to them can use or modify for use the migration tools provided. They are available under a Creative Commons Attribution license and so freely able to be used and modified.
    • ENRICH Garage Engine migration route: the project will be producing a web application to enable migration through multiple formats. If you are interested in that, check the website once it has been released.
  5. The process of migration chosen should be publicly documented and this documentation stored alongside the migration tools and input and output formats.
The ENRICH project undertook a case study looking at the migration of MASTER records to the ENRICH TEI P5 specification.

MASTER

The ENRICH project undertook a case study looking at the migration of Bodleian EAD records to the ENRICH TEI P5 specification. While negotiation with the Bodleian is ongoing, the following information is available:

EAD