Dear colleagues,

the EAD team of TS-EAS (Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards) is looking for community feedback on a suggested addition to EAD3 (see all details of the original proposal and the conversation so far on GitHub - https://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD3/issues/517).

To ensure that the standards under TS-EAS' purview continue to be based on user needs, we are specifically interested in any use cases from your institutions, which would support this change request.

We'd appreciate any feedback and examples to be posted to the GitHub issue cited above or sent via email to [log in to unmask] by end of play on Friday, 31 January 2020.

Thank you very much in advance,
Kerstin
(EAD team lead with TS-EAS)

-----Further details of interest-----

Summary

Suggestion to add <objectxmlwrap> as an alternative to <did> and its siblings within <c> (or numbered <c01> to <c12>)

Intended new feature

Enable the integration of descriptive metadata from other namespaces (e.g. MARC, VRACode, NUDS, etc.), especially when describing single items of other domains, which are part of archival collections

Options discussed so far

• Giving a choice between either <c><did> or <c><objectxmlwrap> to provide identifying descriptive information of a resource
  • This would be the result of the original suggestion.
  • The concern was raised that this would undermine even a minimal level of predictability for metadata exchange, given that EAD already is at the bare minimum of required data.
  • This change would likely constitute a MAJOR REVISION and might hence be put on hold until the next major revision of EAD3
• Using the currently available model of <c><did> alongside <c><relations> and make use of the <objectxmlwrap> element within <relation>
  • The question was raised whether establishing a “sameAs” relationship in this context would be conceptually sound.
  • This approach would not REQUIRE ANY CHANGES TO THE SCHEMA
• Adding <objectxmlwrap> as direct, optional sub-element of <did>
  • This suggestion went along with the precondition to still require at least one other sub-element within <did> (i.e. one element of the m.did group)
  • This change would likely constitute a MINOR REVISION and could hence be dealt with in the context of the current annual cycle.