Encoded Archival Description Tag Library, Version 2002
EAD Elements
<subject> Subject
Description:
A term that identifies a topic associated with or covered by the described materials. Personal, corporate, and geographic names behaving as subjects are tagged as <persname>, <corpname>, and <geogname>, respectively. The ROLE attribute can be set to "subject" when it is necessary to specify the relationship of the name to the materials being described.
All subjects mentioned in a finding aid do not have to be tagged. One option is to tag those subjects for which access other than basic, undifferentiated keyword retrieval is desired. Use of controlled vocabulary forms is recommended to facilitate access to the subjects within and across finding aid systems. The <subject> element may be used in text elements such as <p>. To indicate a subject with major representation in the materials being described, nest <subject> within the <controlaccess> element.
Use the SOURCE attribute to specify the vocabulary from which the term has been taken. The NORMAL attribute can be used to provide the authority form of a term that has been encoded with <subject> in narrative text, e.g., within a paragraph. The RULES attribute can be used to specify the descriptive rules followed when formulating the term. The AUTHFILENUMBER attribute can be used to identify a link to an authority file record that has more information about the subject or cross references for alternative forms of a subject term.
The <subject> element is comparable to MARC fields 650 and 69x.
May contain:
#PCDATA, emph, extptr, lb, ptr
May occur within:
controlaccess, entry, event, extref, extrefloc, indexentry, item, label, namegrp, p, physdesc, physfacet, ref, refloc, unittitle
Attributes:
| ALTRENDER | #IMPLIED, CDATA |
| AUDIENCE | #IMPLIED, external, internal |
| AUTHFILENUMBER | #IMPLIED, CDATA |
| ENCODINGANALOG | #IMPLIED, CDATA |
| ID | #IMPLIED, ID |
| NORMAL | #IMPLIED, CDATA |
| RULES | #IMPLIED, NMTOKEN |
| SOURCE | #IMPLIED, NMTOKEN |
Example:
<controlaccess>
<head>Selected Search Terms</head>
<controlaccess>
<head>Subjects:</head>
<subject encodinganalog="650">Alien and Sedition laws, 1798</subject>
<subject encodinganalog="650">American Confederate voluntary exiles</subject>
<subject encodinganalog="650">Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798</subject>
</controlaccess>
</controlaccess>