Hi all,

xEAC (https://github.com/ewg118/xEAC), an open source, XForms-based
framework for the creation and publication of EAC-CPF records (for archival
authorities or scholarly prosopographies) is now ready for another round of
testing. While xEAC is still under development, it is essentially
production-ready for small-to-medium collections of authority records (less
than 100,000).

xEAC handles the majority of the elements in the EAC-CPF schema, with
particular focus on enhancing controlled vocabulary with external linked
open data systems and the semantic linking of relations between entities.
The following LOD lookup mechanisms are supported:

Geography: Geonames, LCNAF, Getty TGN, Pleiades Gazetteer of Ancient Places
Occupations/Functions: Getty AAT
Misc. linking and data import: VIAF, DBpedia, nomisma.org, and SNAC

xEAC supports transformation of EAC-CPF into a rudimentary form of three
different RDF models and posting data into an RDF triplestore by optionally
connecting the system to a SPARQL endpoint. Additionally, EADitor (
https://github.com/ewg118/eaditor), an open source framework for EAD
finding aid creation and publication can hook into a xEAC installation for
controlled vocabulary as well as posting to a triplestore, making it
possible to link archival authorities and content through LOD methodologies.

The recently released American Numismatic Society biographies (
http://numismatics.org/authorities/) and the new version of the archives (
http://numismatics.org/archives/) illustrate this architecture. For
example, the authority record for Edward T. Newell (
http://numismatics.org/authority/newell), contains a dynamically generated
list of archival resources (from a SPARQL query). This method is more
scalable and sustainable in the long run than using the EAC
resourceRelation element. Now that SPARQL has successfully been implemented
in xEAC, I will begin to integrate social network analysis interfaces into
the application.

More information:
Github repository: https://github.com/ewg118/xEAC
XForms for Archives, a blog detailing xEAC and EADitor development, as well
as linked data methodologies applied to archival collections:
http://eaditor.blogspot.com/
xEAC installation instructions: http://wiki.numismatics.org/xeac:xeac

Ethan Gruber
American Numismatic Society