On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Richard Rinehart wrote:

>
> In using the EAD in our museum we have come upon one suggestion for the
> next version of the DTD: to add "label" and "source" attributes to the
> PHYSFACET element. I've emailed about this before, but wanted to simplify
> the thought to just one clear suggestion.
>
> These attributes are already available in the PHYSDESC element, but could
> be just as useful in the more granular PHYSFACET element for describing
> collections with detailed physical descriptions like those in museums (and
> it sounds like many archives). If for some reason, adding a "source"
> attribute to PHYSFACET is not a good strategy, perhaps allowing one to use
> the "source" attribute of the PHYSDESC element to inherit downward to apply
> to all the "label" attributes in the contained PHYSFACETs would work, but
> the former model seemed to be more straightforward.

Just wanted to clarify, since I haven't worked with the <physfacet>
element at all.

First, in looking at the tag library, it appears that the "source"
attribute can be supplied on both the <physdesc> and <physfacet> elements
and that the range of values is the same for both usages.

Second, I wonder if by the nature of its hierarchical containment, the
attribute information on the <physdesc> tag isn't automatically inherited
by any <physfacet> elements contained within it?  So that

<physdesc source="aat">
  <physfacet>facet1</physfacet>
  <physfacet>facet2</physfacet>
</physdesc>

necessarily implies that the source for both facet1 and facet2 is "aat".
The only reason one would need a source attribute on a <physfacet> in the
above scenario would be to note exceptions to the source declared on the
<physdesc> element, as in

<physdesc source="aat">
  <physfacet>facet1</physfacet>
  <physfacet>facet2</physfacet>
  <physfacet source="lctgm">facet3</physfacet>
</physdesc>

Does this address part of Richard Rinehart's question?

As for the label attribute, which is currently only available on
<physdesc> and not on <physfacet>...perhaps Richard could give us an
example?  I'm not sure I really understand how this attribute would be
used by someone describing a museum item (or any other item for that
matter!) I guess, based on the above examples, that currently if one puts
a label attribute onto the <physdesc> tag then all <physfacet>s contained
within that <physdesc> would inherit that label information.  Are there
examples of cases in which one or more of the <physfacet>s would need an
exception noted to that label?

Thanks for the clarification!

________ [Bill Landis] ___________________________ [[log in to unmask]]
      Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
   University of California, Los Angeles