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> From: Encoded Archival Description List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dale Patterson
> The organization suggested below is a leftover from the days of typed finding aids when 
> the human eye did the searching on the page.I would say that each folder needs to have
> its complete title, and information, because it may well have to stand on its own in a display.� 
> Encoding which has Abilgard, Mark - General, 1989-1998 preserves the entire information 
> together and allows it to be displayed with a minimum of effort.� 


I'm not sure I understand.  Are you suggesting that the EAD encoding should look like this:

<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Correspondence, General</unittitle><unitdate>1980-1995</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Correspondence, General</unittitle><unitdate>1995-2000</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Correspondence, Family</unittitle><unitdate>1970-1980</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Correspondence, Family</unittitle><unitdate>1980-1990</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Correspondence, Family</unittitle><unitdate>1990-2000</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Memorabilia</unittitle><unitdate>2000-2010</unitdate></c02>  
<c02><unittitle>Smith, John, Memorabilia</unittitle><unitdate>2000-2010</unitdate></c02>  


Instead of like this:

<c02><unittitle>Smith, John</unittitle>
   <c03><unittitle>Correspondence</unittitle>
      <c04><unittitle>General</unittitle><unitdate>1980-2000</unittitle><physdesc>2 folders</physdesc></did></c04>
      <c04><unittitle>Family</unittitle><unitdate>1970-2010</unittitle><physdesc>3 folders</physdesc></did></c04>
   </c03>
   <c03><unittitle>Memorabilia</unittitle></c03>
</c02>


If so I would very much disagree.  For one thing it's an incredible amount of data duplication.  One of the best things about XML in general and EAD in particular is inheritance, the idea that child elements "inherit" information from their parents.  Data duplication = evil, right?  If you want the search results to display the folder titles complete with all the ancestral information, that's just a display thing (and easy to do, you just walk back up the document tree collecting ancestor unittitle's) -- it has nothing to do with how the data is encoded.

Michele