As one who has not yet implemented, maybe my voice won't carry as much
weight, but I share Leslie Morris' concerns.  In many of my finding aids,
physical arrangement does NOT match intellectual arrangement, although it
DOES match the original order of the materials.  Oversize materials
represent another instance in which physical order departs from
intellectual arrangement.  I hope EAD can be configured to efficiently code
arrangements like this, and I defer to Leslie Morris' judgment as to the
most efficient coding scheme.

--MIKE WIDENER, Archivist/Rare Books Librarian, Tarlton Law Library, School
of Law, University of Texas at Austin | 727 E. Dean Keeton St., Austin, TX
78705-3224 | Phone:512/471-7263 | fax:512/471-0243 |
E-mail:[log in to unmask] | Web
site:<http://www.law.utexas.edu/rare/rare.htm>


>Last fall, as part of the Harvard/Radcliffe Digital Finding Aids Project's
>suggested revisions to EAD beta, we submitted a request that <unitloc> be
>valid at any point within the finding aid.  While the abolition of
><unitloc> in favor of two tags, <physloc> and <container>,
>partially addresses concerns raised about the meaning of the tag, it did
>not address our particular problem, which was our desire to be able to use
>one of these tags *AT ANY POINT WITHIN THE FINDING AID*.
>
>In a finding aid, physical location (such as box, i.e. <container>) may
>change within the intellectual unit being described.  In many finding
>aids, we have folder lists arranged alphabetically or chronologically,
>into which are inserted box numbers.  The boxes are not part of the
>intellectual arrangement, but merely necessary for retrieval.  We could
>not use <unitloc> earlier, because we could not validate our documents.
>We cannot use either <physloc> or <container> now, because still when we
>attempt to use these tags where it seems appropriate to us, the document
>will not validate.

[...]

>This seems contrary to the appropriate use of the <C> element, which
>should be marking up intellectual order.  Since both <container> and
><physloc> are obviously incidental to the intellectual order in many
>instances, why can't we use them at any point within the finding aid?