Encoded Archival Description Tag Library, Version 2002

EAD Elements

<eadheader> EAD Header

Description:

A wrapper element for bibliographic and descriptive information about the finding aid document rather than the archival materials being described. The <eadheader> is modeled on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) header element to encourage uniformity in the provision of metadata across document types.

The <eadheader> is required, because information that was often unrecorded for a local paper finding aid is essential in a machine-readable environment. Four subelements are available, which must occur in the following order: <eadid> (required), <filedesc> (required), <profiledesc> (optional), and <revisiondesc> (optional). These elements and their subelements provide: a unique identification code for the finding aid; bibliographic information, such as the author and title of the finding aid; information about the encoding of the finding aid; and statements about significant revisions.

The FINDAIDSTATUS attribute can be used to indicate how complete or polished the information in the finding aid is. The COUNTRYENCODING, DATEENCODING, LANGENCODING, REPOSITORYENCODING, and SCRIPTENCODING attributes are used to specify the ISO standards from which code values for other attributes, such as COUNTRYCODE in <eadid> and <unitid>, are taken.

Some or all of the <eadheader> subelements can be used to display title page information. Alternatively, the <eadheader> can be blocked from display by setting the AUDIENCE attribute to "internal" and using the <frontmatter> <titlepage> elements to create a title page.

May contain:

eadid, filedesc, profiledesc, revisiondesc

May occur within:

ead, eadgrp

Attributes:

Example:

Following are the required <eadheader> elements. See fully encoded examples in Appendix C for more detail.

<eadheader>
    <eadid>[...]</eadid>
    <filedesc>
        <titlestmt>
            <titleproper>[...]</titleproper>
        </titlestmt>
    </filedesc>
</eadheader>