On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 12:26:35 -0400, "Ruth Bogan" <[log in to unmask]>
said:
> When you deconstruct the heading into the biography, you make the record
pretty much useless as an
> authority record.

Am again in a hurry, but on this: the focus in my example is on logical
structure easily ammenable to processing. I presume some basic
scripting/xslt logic to get the data into whatever display form one would
want (it should be easy,even for me). It would also make it more flexible
(I think) for data searching.

> Would it be too much to ask you to "redo" one of the sample MADS records
> at
> the MADS web site, in a way that makes sense to you. I would find it
> interesting.

No, here's two, with comments:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mads xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mads/">
  <authority>
    <organization>
      <orgName>Whatever Organization</orgName>
    </organization>
  </authority>
<!--
1) Get rid of elememts like ref and refs and replace them with what they
really refer
to, with options of: organization, person, event, place, and work.

2) Make that wrapper element enclose the entire authority record data.
-->
  <organization>
    <name>
      <primary>
        <orgName>Federal Bureau of Investigation</orgName>
      </primary>
<!--
Following suggestion of Andy S., have variant as a full element. MADS
and MODS rely too
much on attributes, which are inflexible. Have variant elements enclosed
within their
referent. One cannot, after all, have a non-name acronym variant in the
above. The above
structure makes both human reading and XML processing easier.
-->
      <variant type="acronym">
        <orgName>FBI</orgName>
      </variant>
    </name>
<!--
Remove role from name, since they are two separate pieces of metadata.
-->
    <role>
      <roleTerm>???</roleTerm>
    </role>
    <time>
<!--
It is really important for processing XML to parse data where
appropriate. Dates is a perfect
example. If I want all organizations estbalished in the United States in
the first two decades
of the 20th century, it's simple to do this with vanilla XML tools.
Otherwise, it is not.
-->
      <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate"
      point="start">1919</temporal>
    </time>
    <place>
      <address>
        <street>123 3rd Avenue</street>
        <city>Washington</city>
        <state>DC</state>
<!--
An email is typically considered an address.
-->
        <email>[log in to unmask]</email>
      </address>
    </place>
  </organization>

And, the second:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mads xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mads/">
  <authority>
    <organization>
      <orgName>Whatever Organization</orgName>
    </organization>
  </authority>
  <person>
    <name>
      <primary>
<!--
It's hard to process names without knowing if it they are abbreviated or
not,
and abbreviation of name parts is different than abbreviation of the name
as a whole.
-->
        <givenName abbreviated="yes">J</givenName>
        <givenName>Edgar</givenName>
        <familyName>Hoover</familyName>
      </primary>
    </name>
    <time>
<!-- Am not sure if I like this date handling, but will keep for now -->
      <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate"
      point="start">1900</temporal>
      <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate"
      point="end">1972</temporal>
    </time>
    <affiliation>
<!--
Not sure the details are right below, but basic idea is to be able to
represent changing
positions, and even affiliations. Think of a lawyer who becomes a Supreme
Court Judge,
and so forth.
-->
      <organization>
        <orgName>Federal Bureau of Investigation</orgName>
        <position>
          <title>Director</title>
          <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate" point="start">1924</temporal>
          <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate" point="end">1972</temporal>
        </position>
        <position>
          <title>Assistant Director</title>
          <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate" point="start">1919</temporal>
          <temporal encoding="w3cdtf" qualifier="approximate" point="end">1924</temporal>
        </position>
      </organization>
    </affiliation>
  </person>
</mads>