Articulation with RiC - Extend the use of the @coverage attribute to other elements to indicate partial inheritance

[BrigitteMichel]

Creator of issue

1. Brigitte Michel ([email protected])
2. Abes (Agence bibliographique de l'enseignement supérieur = Bibliographic Agency of Higher Education)

The issue relates to

• EAC-CPF schema issue
• EAC-CPF Tag Library issue
• EAD schema issue
• EAD Tag Library issue
• Schema issue
• Tag Library issue
• Suggestions for all schemas
• Suggestions for all Tag Libraries
• Other

Wanted change/feature

• Text: As noted in § 3.4 of RiC-CM (source: RiC-CM 1.0), some elements must be strictly inherited by all child components (all children); others should be understood as a predominant characteristic among the children (some children). It would be beneficial if an XML attribute in EAD 4.0 could specify this distinction for relevant elements.

Suggested Solution

• Text: Extending the use of the @coverage attribute beyond just physical characteristics (<physDesc>) or instantiation (<formAvailable>) to include elements corresponding to the attributes marked with an * in § 4.2.1 of RiC-CM: <accessConditions>, <useConditions>, <legalStatus>, <languageOfMatrial> with <language> and <writingSystem>, <referringString>, and <genreForm> (see suggestion in Maintain <genreForm> as a separate element #145).
• Example:

<archDesc level="fonds">
  <identificationData>
    <unitTitle>Papiers Philippe Berger</unitTitle>
    <languageOfMaterial coverage="part">
      <language languageCode="fre">français</language>
    </languageOfMaterial>
  </identificationData>
  <sourceOfAcquisition><p>Legs de Philippe Berger.</p></sourceOfAcquisition>
  <useConditions coverage="part"><p>La reproduction et la publication de tout document ou partie d'un document sont soumises à l'autorisation de la direction de l'établissement.</p></useConditions>
  <descriptionOfComponents>
    <c level="file">
      <identificationData>
        <unitTitle>Correspondance de Philippe Berger</unitTitle>
        <unitDate calendar="gregorian" era="" standardDate="1846/1912">1846-1912</unitDate>
      </identificationData>
      <c>
      [...]
        <c level="item">
          <identificationData>
            <unitTitle>Lettre d'Antoine Abadie</unitTitle>
            <languageOfMaterial coverage="whole">
              <language languageCode="ang">anglais</language>
            </languageOfMaterial>
          </identificationData>
          <useConditions coverage="whole"><p>La reproduction et la publication interdite.</p></useConditions>
        </c>
      </c>
    </c>
  </descriptionOfComponents>
</archDesc>

[kerstarno]

Background RiC-CM

RiC-CM 1.0 states in chapter 3.4 that:

"EGAD, in order to keep RiC-CM as concise as possible, has chosen not to differentiate these attributes. Instead, attributes for which this distinction [whether a record set e.g. has the language of all members or some members] is relevant are identified in the "Scope" statements in section 3.6 [...] and with an '*' in the list of attributes for the record set entity in section 4.2.1 [...]."

This is followed by the statement in chapter 4.2.1 that:

"Attributes that may be used in the description of all or some members of a record set rather than the record set itself are indicated with an asterisk *, while those that may be used to describe both the record set and all or some of its members are indicated by a plus sign +."

The EAD 4.0 elements mentioned above fall under the first category, i.e. these should rather be present with the members of a record set (i.e. with sub-component <c> elements of a higher-level <c> element or of <archDesc>) and not necessarily with the record set itself, thereby circumnavigating the question whether the record set shares these characteristics with all or (only) some of its members.

There are only two RiC attributes (i.e. EAD elements) that fall in the second category, i.e. "may be used to describe both the record set and all or some of its members": RiC-A40 Structure (which would translate to <arrangement>) and RiC-A21 History (which would translate to <custodHist>, <sourceOfAcquisition>, <agent> with the <agentRole> of "creator" or "origination"). Yet, again, the statement made by RiC-CM is more about whether these might/should be used on different levels of description.

Background @coverage

With EAD's general approach towards inheritance of information (i.e. what is stated for a higher level of description applies to all lower levels of description as long as there isn't a specific counter statement made for these lower levels of description themselves), @coverage in its current use is not about a whole/part relation between the same elements used on different levels of description, but about a whole/part relation between a repeated element used on one level of description only. The suggestion here would hence also mean a change in scope of the EAD attribute.

[kerstarno]

Might be discussed by TS-EAS during their meeting on 12/13 August 2024 if time allows (i.e. if other discussion points can be solved in less time than anticipated. Otherwise, the EAD team will pick this up at their next monthly meeting end of September.

[kerstarno]

Not discussed eventually during the TS-EAS meeting on 12/13 August due to time constraints. Will now be on the agenda at the EAD team meeting either in September or October 2024.