Hi Mike,

For the Archives Hub we've always used these tags. To my mind, the more accurate we can be semantically the better. I think this has particularly been proven with our Linked Data output. Extent is the most common entry in <physdesc> from our contributors, and so we are looking at what we can do with this content in terms of visualisation work (how large a collection is could be represented visually). 

I always feel that its good to think about the potential of data, and enabling machines to process these elements separately gives more potential to integrate them into different ways of presenting the data . 

...having said that, the lack of consistency in the actual content can be a barrier to potential use, but that's another story....

cheers,
Jane.

Jane Stevenson
The Archives Hub
Mimas, The University of Manchester
Devonshire House, Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9QH

email:[log in to unmask]
tel: 0161 275 6055
website: archiveshub.ac.uk
blog: archiveshub.ac.uk/blog
twitter: twitter.com/archiveshub

On 15 Nov 2011, at 22:29, Mike Doylen wrote:

> At my repository, we are discussing the pros and cons of marking up elements
> of <physdesc> at a more granular level than we've done in the past.
> Previously we've entered information as plain text. We're exploring the
> possibility of encoding <dimension>, <extent>, <genreform>, and <physfacet>
> subelements.
> 
> What advantages have people found to encoding these subelements separately?
> 
> Thank you for your input.