EAD4: appropriate subelements for <function> and <subject>

[vns2]

Creator of issue

Nils Meyer
Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg
[email protected]

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: The reasons for the use of the <targetType> subelement, the <targetRole> subelement and the <term> subelement for <subject> and <function> are not clear. <subject> and <function> should use appropriate subelements, such as <subjectType> / <functionType> and <subjectRole> / <functionRole>. Similarly appropriate subelements could be <subjectTerm> and <functionTerm>, although the “type” and “role” subelements are a higher priority as the “term” subelement. since the word “term” might also apply to functions and subjects.

Suggested Solution

• Text: Change the following elements:
  <subject> :
  <targetType> to <subjectType>
<targetRole> to <subjectRole>
  maybe <term> to <subjectTerm>
<function> :
  <targetType> to <functionType>
<targetRole> to <functionRole>
  maybe <term> to <functionTerm>

[kerstarno]

Will be discussed by TS-EAS during their meeting on 12/13 August 2024 at the SAA Annual Meeting.

Review together with #117, which kind of suggests the contrary approach, and #134.

[kerstarno]

Copied from #142:

Submitted by Brigitte Michel ([email protected]) on behalf of Abes (Agence bibliographique de l'enseignement supérieur = Bibliographic Agency of Higher Education)

According to the Tag Library (p. 230 and 232) (+ p.115 and 224), <targetRole> and <targetType> are optional children of <function> and <subject>. I do not understand the possible use of <targetRole> and <targetType> in the <function> (2 elements not defined in EAC) and <subject> elements because in these two cases, the nature of the relationship is already defined by the name of the element itself: there is therefore no Role to define.
Additionally, this seems contradictory to the note on p.116: "Use <relation> with <targetEntity> having the @targetType "function" when describing the relationship with the function in more detail." : this implies that one must choose between two options: an internal description in the EAD file within the <function> element or a description of a relationship to an external function.

NB: there is also confusion in this remark between a @targetType attribute, which is not defined in the "Tag Library DRAFT" and the <targetType> element defined on p. 232 (source: https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/EAD4.0_DraftTagLibrary.pdf)."

[kerstarno]

With regard to the last two observations made in the previous comment: these are bugs in the draft TL. @targetType as an attribute does not exist in the draft of EAD 4.0. The "See also" note cited from page 116 should have been removed (change was applied already in the TEI XML file in the ead4 branch of https://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAS-TagLibraries.

[kerstarno]

Copied from #142 where it was added as an initial comment to the original post by @florenceclavaud:

Well, you may want to say, for example, that the <subject> encoded is the main subject of the records described, which may be quite useful for some users in some situations; or, if the record described is a photograph or series of photographs, or engraving, that it is what the record(s) represent.

Anyway, I am not sure <targetRole> and <relationType> are not somewhat redundant.