As part of the Collection Description Focus work announced recently on this
list, we have made available a _draft_ mapping between the elements of the
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) DTD and the RSLP Collection Description
Schema. See
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/isadg/crosswlk.html
I should emphasise that this is very much a draft mapping and feedback from
members of this list, particularly from implementers of either schema, would
be appreciated.
Some other points to note:
(i) As Andy Powell emphasises in his note (linked from the mapping
document), the RSLP CLD schema is not, and was never intended to be, a
replacement for ISAD(G), EAD, or any other community/domain-specific
schema/standard for collection-level description.
(ii) For those of you unfamiliar with the RSLP CLD schema, I would urge you
to look at some of the background materials on that schema before looking at
the mapping. The schema is a selective implementation of a rigorous "data
model" for a collection. That model identifies several classes of entity
related to the collection and the properties or attributes used to describe
those entities and their relationships. The same property may be used in the
description of different entities.
(iii) The model referred to above, and the RSLP CLD schema, both take a very
broad view of what a "collection" is, and this is reflected in the fairly
general definitions of the semantics of the properties/attributes in the
schema. A "catalogue", as an aggregate of records which describe other
objects, is considered to be a type of "collection".
(iv) The mapping is (I hope!) aligned with the ISAD(G)-EAD mappings
published in the EAD 1.0 Application Guidelines and those used by the UK
Archives Hub, and with the Dublin Core-EAD mapping in the EAD Application
Guidelines. (Bear in mind that the RSLP CLD schema is using DC elements to
describe several different entities, not only the archival collection
itself.)
(v) To describe the elements in the mapping, I have made use of an
XPath-style shorthand in the tables, to emphasise, on the input side, that
the semantics of the EAD elements are qualified by their context of use and,
on the output side, that the properties apply to specific entities within
the model. The RSLP CLD schema is implemented using RDF, and descriptions
can be encoded using a number of different variations of XML syntax. The
forms used in the tables should correspond to that used in the RDF/XML
desriptions which are output from the RSLP CLD tool at
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/tool/
(vi) It is recognised that the EAD DTD was designed to allow for a degree of
flexibility in its use. Implementers often supplement the Tag Library and
Application Guidelines with local guidelines which specify encoding
conventions to meet the requirements of partcular projects and communities.
It is important to bear in mind that the general mappings in these tables
may need to be tailored to fit local encoding practice. It may also be true
that with a knowledge of the details of local encoding conventions, the
mappings might be enhanced in order to generate richer RSLP CLD RDF/XML
descriptions than this general mapping describes.
(vii) I have tried to indicate in the tables some areas where the semantic
matches may be somewhat "fuzzy", or where they may be appropriate in some
cases but not others, depending on the content of the EAD description.
(These are largely in the area of how well ISAD(G)'s "creator"/EAD's
<origination> corresponds to the "Collector" agent in the RSLP model.)
I would be grateful to receive comments, either to the list or off-list if
you prefer.
Regards
Pete Johnston
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Pete Johnston
Collection Description Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
tel: +44 (0)1225 323619 fax: +44 (0)1225 826838
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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