Thanks Richard for the tips on generating the JAX-B bindings for custom schemas, that worked as advertised. We now have a working-but-incomplete import scenario for our Person authorities and Collection Objects, written in Jython so we can write fast (Python FTW!) and still use the JAX-B classes to pump out valid XML for the import. It's a non-traditional approach, to be sure, but one I think is worth a look for other implementers who may be having the same agony I was with Talend and Kettle. I think there are similar Java bridges for almost every language, so this idea is applicable to perl, Ruby, etc. More notes in the Import section here and the github link referenced: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/deploy/Walker+Art+Center Feedback welcome. Meanwhile I have to catch up on a bunch of non-CS work so this is going on the back-burner for a bit. Thanks everyone for helping get us this far. Nate