I was going to suggest using the id and level attributes in the <c0x> tag.
Looking at the tag library, <unitid> and the attrib's in <c0x> seem to be
used for much the same purpose, but <unitid> is probably the better method
here.
So there is certainly a great deal of redundancy built into the standard,
It may be problematic in the long run if everyone does this
differently. This possibility seems to be emerging from the other
replies.
Like many institutions, we are not encoding this information. It would be
interesting to know how many institutions are, since it would certainly
aid retrival at some future point (when we share finding aids in a more
systematic way) to know that everyone is doing it in a standardized
fashion. So we are back to the issue of the trade-offs between
flexibility and prescription in the standard.
Chris Prom
University of Illinois Archives
On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Fox, Michael wrote:
> Have you considered tagging the numerical designations as <unitid>s?
>
>
> Michael J. Fox
> Assistant Director for Library and Archives
> Minnesota Historical Society
> 345 Kellogg Blvd West
> St. Paul, MN 55102-1906
> 651-296-2150 (phone)
> 651-296-9961 (fax)
> [log in to unmask]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephanie Ashley [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 8:20 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: numbering series/subseries titles
>
>
> Hello All,
>
> As we continue to work on implementing EAD (we are currently in the process
> of assessing whether to adopt the encoding protocol of the EAD Cookbook)
> we've come across a problem and I'm hoping that some of you kind and
> knowledgeable people can give us some advice.
>
> In our repository we commonly assign numbers to our series and subseries. We
> find that this enables us to reflect the hierarchical arrangement of the
> materials we are describing and to express the intellectual structure of our
> finding aids. Indeed, with large and complex collections which may have two
> or more series containing subseries of similar materials, it's a very useful
> way of clarifying which records belong to which series. Below is an example
> of how we've been encoding our series/subseries titles:
>
> <c01><unittitle>Series 1: Correspondence,
> <unitdate>1913-1978</unitdate></unittitle>
>
> <c02>><unittitle>1.1: New York Office Correspondence,
> <unitdate>1917-1930</unitdate></unittitle></c02>
>
> <c02>><unittitle>1.2: Paris Office Correspondence,
> <unitdate>1913-1922</unitdate></unittitle></c02>
>
> </c01>
>
> Although we believe the practice of numbering series/subseries is fairly
> common practice in archives, we've been unable to find many examples of
> EAD-encoded finding aids on the web that show these numbers in their
> unittitles. Is it considered bad practice to include an assigned
> series/subseries number in the <unittitle>? I understand that, strictly
> speaking, "Series 1" is not, for example, part of the unittitle for records
> labeled "Correspondence," but since a series title is essentially a term
> created by the archivist anyway, how big of a tagging sin is it to add a
> numerical value to that term? Can anyone foresee any problems with us
> continuing to encode our series/subseries titles in this way, particulary in
> regard to sharing our finding aids down the road?
>
> Thanks for any input you can give us,
>
> Stephanie
>
>
> Stephanie Ashley
> Project Archivist
> Archives of American Art
> Smithsonian Institution
> 202-275-1672
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
>
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