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We spent a long time a year or so ago defining elements for citations and ended up with an element <part> that was under <relatedItem>. Currently, all MODS elements are defined under <relatedItem>, but in addition <part> is ONLY defined under relatedItem. The MODS guidelines say that <part> is limited to use for <relatedItem type="host"> for generating citations about the location within a host or parent item (although this can't be enforced by the schema). There are some problems with this. One is that it breaks the content model for relatedItem where it brings in all MODS elements, since <part> isn't a top-level MODS element. The other is that, because MODS requires at least one element, at least one MODS element must be under <relatedItem>, but since <part> is not a MODS element you can't use <part> alone. We have a large initiative called the National Digital Newspaper Program to digitize newspaper pages from 1836-1923. We are planning the architecture now and plan to use METS and MODS. There will be METS documents for issues of newspapers with MODS metadata for the issue as well as possibly for the pages (the pages will be detailed in the METS structural map at least). There is a need to include information about the enumeration (volume, issue, etc.) about the particular issue being digitized which is what is being described. It seems more intuitive in this instance to do this at the MODS level rather than the related item level. So my proposal is to define <part> as a MODS element. The user could choose whether to use it at the MODS level or related item level. It would provide more flexibility and would allow relatedItem to be recursive and include any MODS element. It would solve the problem of being required to have one MODS element in addition to <part>. And it wouldn't invalidate any existing records. Rebecca