Progress report on the revision of Encoded Archival Description given at the 2012 EAD Roundtable meeting, 8 August 2012.

1. EAD REVISION
PROGRESS REPORT
EAD Roundtable, SAA 2012, 2012-08-08

2. THE LONG AND WINDING
ROAD

3. TIMELINE TO DATE
Comments Funding Revision Forum
• 2010-10 to 2011- • Spring 2011 • SAA 2011
02
Conference calls TS-EAD Share Essential
• Spring/Summer Working Meeting Documentation
2012 • March 2012 • Winter 2012

4. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY
FRIENDS

5. SUPPORT
 Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
 National Endowment for the Humanities
 Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands
 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University

6. GET BACK

7. POINTS OF EMPHASIS
 Achieving greater conceptual and semantic
consistency in the use of EAD.
 Exploring mechanisms whereby EAD-
encoded information might more
seamlessly and effectively connect
with, exchange, or incorporate data
maintained according to other protocols.

8. POINTS OF EMPHASIS
 Improving the functionality of EAD for
representing descriptive information
created in international and particularly in
multilingual environments.
 Being mindful that a new version will affect
current users.

9. DRIVE MY CAR

10. COMMUNITY COMMENTS
 Non-Descriptive
 Schema and documentation
 General nature and purpose
 Relationships to related resources and entities
 EAD Header

11. COMMUNITY COMMENTS
 Descriptive
 Hierarchy elements
 Wrapper elements
 Controlled terms
 Digital Archival Objects
 Date encoding
 Languages and scripts
 Other elements

12. HELLO GOODBYE

13. GENERAL PROCEDURES
 Elimination of elements deprecated in
EAD2002
 <add>
 <admininfo>
 <dentry>
 <drow>
 <organization>
 <tspec>
 @langmaterial, @legalstatus, @otherlegalstatus
 Deprecation as a blanket rule for new
removals

14. 2011 QUALIFIERS
Preliminary
Provisional
Contingent
Possible
Potential

15. 2012 QUALIFIERS
Likely
Highly Likely
But nothing is final.

16. HELTER SKELTER

17. DISENTANGLE DESCRIPTIVE
ELEMENTS
 Remove <arrangement> from <scopecontent>
 Remove <acqinfo> from <custodhist>
 Remove <legalstatus> from <accessrestrict>
[and promote it to a sibling]
 Remove <unitdate> from <unittitle>
 Eliminate recursion
 bioghist/bioghist
 controlaccess/controlaccess
 Provide alternative using <div>

18. REDUCE SEMANTIC
OVERLOAD
 <note>
8 distinct uses in EAD:
 <notestmt>
 <titlepage> or <div> [in <frontmatter>
 <did>
 <did> sibling
 Within <did> siblings [as a block element]
 Recursively within <note>
 Within block elements like <p> [as mixed content]
 <namegrp>

19. UPDATE ACCESS TERMS
 Split mixed content and block uses of access
term elements into separate elements
 Separate semantics of the following:
 <p>Includes correspondence from
<persname>John Lennon.</persname></p>
 <controlaccess>
<persname>Lennon, John.</persname>
</controlaccess>

20. UPDATE ACCESS TERMS
 Enable <part>
 <controlaccess>
<persname>
<part>Lennon, John, </part>
<part>1940-1980</part>
</persname>
</controlaccess>

21. ALIGN WITH XHTML
 Minor tweaks to <table>
 Minor tweaks to <list>
 Remove <table>, <list>, and <chronlist> from
within <p>
 Limit <blockquote> to a block element, add
<quote> for inline use.

22. SIMPLIFY LINKS
 Consolidate <extref>, <extptr>, <ref>, and
<ptr> to just <ref>
 Remove linking attributes from assorted
elements, e.g. <title>
 Deprecate extended links
 <daogrp>
 <linkgrp>
 Remove XLINK namespace, but implement
linking attributes isomorphic with XLINK

23. SUPPORT MULTIPLE
LANGUAGES
 Add language code and script code attributes
to each non-empty element

24. REDUCE MIXED CONTENT
 Reduce mixed content by more carefully
considering what elements are appropriate
within a given element
 Examples:
 Limit available children of <container> to <emph>
and <ref>
 Limit available children of <langmaterial> to
<languagef>, <emph>, and <ref>

25. COME TOGETHER

26. RECONCILIATION WITH EAC-
CPF
 Replace <eadheader> with <control>
 Keeping <filedesc> but replacing the rest
 Add <relations> at all levels *
 Improve data model for dates *
 Improve <chronlist> *
* Pending discussion

27. ELEANOR RIGBY

28. DEPRECATED ELEMENTS
 <frontmatter>
 <eadgrp>, <archdescgrp>, <dscgrp>
 <descgrp>
 <fileplan>
 <abbr> + <expan>
 <runner>
 <daogrp> + <linkgrp>
 <note>*
 <dsc>

29. SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE
BATHROOM WINDOW

30. ADDITIONS
 Structured <physdesc>
 <formsavailable>
 container/@containerId
 <didnote>
 unittitle/@normal
 <relations>

31. STRUCTURED PHYSDESC
 <physdesc> will remain
 Unstructured and textual
 Provides migration path
 <physdescstruct> [provisional name] will be
added
 Fully
encoded
 Machine actionable

32. STRUCTURED PHYSDESC
 <physdescstuct>
 @physdesctype
 carrier
 space [space occupied]
 matttype [material type]
 Specified Materials <specmat>
 Physical Type <phystype>
 Physical Details <physdetail>

33. STRUCTURED PHYSDESC
<physdesc type="carrier">
<specmat>Diaries</specmat>
<num>52</num>
<phystype>volumes</phystype>
<dimensions>25 cm.</dimensions>
</physdesc>

34. STRUCTURED PHYSDESC
<physdesc type="space">
<specmat>Collection</specmat>
<num>39</num>
<phystype>linear feet</phystype>
</physdesc>

35. STRUCTURED PHYSDESC
<physdesc type="mattype">
<num>27</num>
<phystype>architectural
drawings</phystype>
<physdetail>blueprints</physdetail>
<dimensions> 28 x 36 inches</dimensions>
</physdesc>

36. FORMS AVAILABLE
<did>
<unittitle>Photograph</unittitle>
<formsavailable>
<container type=“Box”>1</container>
<dao href=“url”/>
</formsavailable>
</did>

37. CONTAINER ID
<container type=“Box” containerid=“1234”>
1
</container>
represents the same container as
<container type=“Box” containerid=“1234”>
1
</container>

38. CONTAINER ID
<container type=“Box” containerid=“1234”>
1
</container>
represents a different container from
<container type=“Box” containerid=“5678”>
1
</container>

39. DID NOTE
 <didnote>
 Contain PCDATA, mixed content elements
(<emph>, <ref>, etc.)
 Will not contain <p>, <table>, <list>
<did>
<didnote @label=“Note”>Mean Mr. Mustard
sleeps in the park.</didnote>
</did>

40. ADDITIONS
 Structured <physdesc>
 <formsavailable>
 container/@containerId
 <didnote>
 unittitle/@normal
 <relations>

41. LET IT BE

42. REJECTED PROPOSALS
 Eliminate <did>
 Eliminate <head>
 Eliminate <abstract>
 Eliminate numbered components
 Make <archdesc> a wrapper tag for
components alone
 Make @level required for all components

43. I WANT TO HOLD YOUR
HAND

44. RELATED TOOLS
 Migration stylesheet(s)
 External validation tools to
 Validate ISO code lists, etc.
 Establishing subset profiles
 Encoding manipulation tools
 Stylesheet
to change between numbered and
unnumbered components

45. MAXWELL’S SILVER
HAMMER

46. TESTING AND COMMENTS
Changes Github
Review Testing
Comme
nts

47. SDT GITHUB REPOSITORY
http://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD-
Revision

48. REVISED SCHEMA
 Currently pre-Alpha
 Hacked version of existing schema
 Comprehensive re-write pending
 http://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD-
Revision/blob/master/ead_revised.rng

49. MIGRATION STYLESHEET
 Draft conversion of existing EAD 2002
instances to new EAD
 Intended to be developed alonside
schema, but lagging behind
 http://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD-
Revision/blob/master/ead2002toEADx.xsl

50. ISSUE TRACKER
 Three tags for issues
 “Bugs”
 (TS-EAD)“Feature Requests”
 “Comments”
 http://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD-
Revision/issues

51. TOMORROW NEVER
KNOWS

52. REMAINING TIMELINE
Progress Report Alpha Schema Schema
• 2012 EAD Roundtable Release Development
• Fall 2012 Team Meeting
• Comments begin • October 2012
Final comment Beta Schema
period ends Release
• 15 February 2013 • 15 January 2013
• Final comments begin

53. REMAINING TIMELINE
Tag Library Finalize schema
Editorial Meeting requirements and
• March 2013 tag library
• 1 April 2013
Schema and tag
library release
• 1 July 2013

54. YOU KNOW MY NAME
(LOOK UP THE NUMBER)

55. FURTHER INFORMATION
 SAA Standards Portal
 http://www2.archivists.org/standards
 Schema Development Team Github
Repository
 http://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD-Revision
 Library of Congress EAD List
 EAD Roundtable List

56. CONTACT
Michael Rush
michael.rush@yale.edu
twitter.com/mike_rush