On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 08:56 -0700, Mark Carlson wrote:
> Yes, this is a purely XML approach, but it is also a huge stretch of
> what the <emph> element is by definition to be used for and results in
> the same need to transform the nodes into an acceptable view in output
> aimed at the public (at least in our case). I have found that XSLT can
> handle either of these approaches equally well.
I agree it's a stretch of what the emph tag was designed for, and I'm
sure that *your* XSLT can handle either approach. However encoding the
MARC subfields in the CDATA of an element means they will always need to
be stripped out, so any other XSL tranformation (e.g. if you wanted to
apply someone else's stylesheet) will also need to incorporate something
to deal with this. XSLT is designed to handle XML elements, not string
manipulations.
Due to the way XSLT works, if you don't have a template to deal with a
specific alrendering (e.g. <emph altrender="$z">Some stuff</emph>), then
it will just be ignored and displayed as everything else in the parent
element.
> In our usage of <emph>, we have expanded the scope of the tag to include
> other types of formatting possibilities by mapping the ALTRENDER
> attribute to the STYLE attribute in HTML and incorporating Cascading
> Style Sheet styles in this attribute; something that the <emph> element
> is more suited for.
Yes, I'm sure this is a more legitimate use of the emph tag, but again
if you don't have a CSS rule for class="$z" then the default formatting
will be applied.
If your motivation for using EAD is reuse and interoperability, then any
format specific encoding in the CDATA of elements is not a good thing.
I should probably explain that my job is to develop software to search,
retrieve and deliver EAD finding aids (from over 100 institutions) via
the web. Hence any unusual, or institutional specific encoding causes me
a major headache, which is why I'm so against this approach.
--
John Harrison
Special Collections and Archives
University of Liverpool Library
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