Hello all,

At Indiana University we're looking to do some more advanced things with our EAD delivery based on what repository an EAD finding aid comes from. I'm trying to figure out where best in the EAD file to get the repository information. We have a few constraints:

1) We really want whatever we do to be based on some kind of coded value, rather than the string in /ead/archdesc/did/repository

2) We'll be dealing with finding aids from a number of repositories, including a number that aren't "cataloging agencies" in their own right and therefore don't have OCLC or MARC codes

3) Whatever we do has to work with the EAD2002 W3C Schema, rather than the DTD

I've looked in the EAD2002 tag library, the EAD 1.0 application guidelines, the RLG EAD best practices, and the EAD listserv archives, and I'm still not quite sure how best to do this. The /ead/eadheader/eadid/@mainagencycode is of course an obvious choice, but even after looking in various places, I'm still not quite sure if we can use this with the EAD2002 schema for repositories that don't have an OCLC or MARC code that conforms to iso15511, even if the finding aid doesn't use repositoryencoding="iso15511" in the <eadheader>. Is there a way to do what I need with /ead/eadheader/eadid/@mainagencycode? Or do I need to look elsewhere? The only other think I can think to do is @id on /ead/archdesc/did/repository, but that seems clunky and kind of tag abuse-ish to me.

Any suggestions?

Jenn

========================
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Program
Indiana University - Bloomington
Wells Library W501
(812) 856-5759
www.dlib.indiana.edu

Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com