We've been struggling with the same dilemma for a couple of years.  We
still use the diacritics so that the names are spelled correctly, and
have used the character entities/Unicode for the xml encoding.  We've
wondered how others are handling this as well.  We've wondered if both
forms of the name should be represented in the finding aid in order for
searching. 


Barbara D. Aikens 
 
Chief, Collections Processing
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Ph: 202-633-7941
email:  [log in to unmask] 
 
Mailing Address
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Victor Bldg., Suite 2200, MRC 937
Washington, DC  20013-7012 
 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Michele Combs
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: special characters in EAD

For those of you who are offering web-based searching of your EAD
finding aids by title or author, how are you handling special characters
in the title, subtitle, or originator (for example, the French accented
e, or German umlauted u) ?  Are you encoding those special characters in
the EAD finding aid using character entities?  If so, does it cause any
problems with indexing or searching, given that most researchers will
not have the special characters in their search string (for example,
they'll likely just use an e without the accent) ?

Thanks

Michele C.


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Michele R. Combs
[log in to unmask]
Manuscripts Processor
Special Collections Research Center
Syracuse University Library
222 Waverly Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244
(315) 443-2697
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