Getting started with XML: A workshop

This is the home page for Getting Started With XML, a manual/workbook about XML.

	Images by David Cherry

Designed for information professional such as librarians and museum curators, this workshop introduces participants to the extensible markup language (XML) through numerous examples, demonstrations, and structured hands-on exercises. Through this process you will be able to evaluate the uses of XML for making your data and information more accessible to people as well as computers. Examples include adding value to electronic texts, creating archival finding aids, and implementing standards compliant Web pages.

By the end of the manual you will have acquired a thorough introduction to XML and be able to: 1) list the six rules governing the syntax of XML documents, 2) create your very own XML markup language, 3) write XML documents using a plain text editor and validate them using a Web browser, 4) apply page layout and typographical techniques to XML documents using cascading style sheets, 5) create simple XML documents using a number of standard XML vocabularies (such as XHTML, TEI, CIMI XML Schema for SPECTRUM, or EAD), and finally, 6) articulate why XML is important for cultural heritage institutions.

The workshop also covers information on using XML in conjunction with a number of pieces of open source software, specifically: Apache, MySQL, xmllint & xsltproc, Perl, and swish-e. By using XML with this software you will learn how to manage large sets of XML data, index it, and disseminate it. This part of the manual/workshop could have been called "Taking XML to the Next Level" or "Shining a LAMP on XML."

To those ends the following things are available:

• the manual as a PDF file intended for printing (948 K)
• the manual as one l o n g HTML document
• the whole thing including sample files as a .zip file(25.5 MB)
• the whole thing including sample files as a .tar.gz file (22.2 MB)
• a slightly dated version of manual translated into French by Nicolas Morin

Enjoy.