Who is the creator?

/ Jane Stevenson / 9 Comments

I am currentphoto of quill pensly working on an exciting new Linked Data project, looking at exposing the Archives Hub metadata in a different way, that could provide great potential for new uses of the data. More on that in future posts. But it has got me thinking about the thorny issue of ‘Name of creator(s)’, as ISAD(G) says. The ‘creator’ of the archive. In RDF modelling (required for Linked Data output) we need to think about how data elements relate to eachother and be explicit about the data elements and the relationships between concepts.

Dublin Core has a widely used ‘createdBy’ element – it would be nice and easy to use that to define the relationship between the person and the archive. The ‘Sir Ernest Shakleton Collection’ createdBy Sir Ernest Shakleton. There is our statement. For RDF we’ll want to identify the names of things with URIs, but leaving that for now, what I’m interested in here is the predicate – the collection was created by Sir Ernest Shakleton, an Arctic explorer whose papers are represented on the Hub.

The only trouble with this is that the collection was not created by him. Well, it was and it wasn’t. The ‘collection’ as a group of things was created by him. That particular group of things would not exist otherwise. But people will usually take ‘created by’ to mean ‘authored by’. It is quite possible that none of the items in the collection were authored by Sir Ernest Shakleton. ISAD(G) refers to the ‘creation, accumulation and maintenance’ and uses ‘creator’ as shorthand for these three different activities. EAD uses ‘origination’ for the ‘individual or organisation responsible for the creation, accumulation or assembly of the described materials’. Maybe that definition is more accurate because it says ‘or assembly’. The idea of an originator appears to get nimbly around the fact that the person or organisation we attribute the archive to is not necessarily the author – they did not necessary create any of the records. But the OED defines the originator as the person who originates something, the creator.

It all seems to hang upon whether the creator can reasonably mean the creator of this archive collection – they are responsible for this collection of materials coming together. The trouble is, even if we go with that, it might work within an archival context – we all agree that this is what we mean – but it doesn’t work so well in a general context. If our Linked Data statement is that the Sir Ernest Shakleton collection ‘was created by’ Sir Ernest Shakleton then this is going to be seen, semantically, as the bog-standard meaning of creator, especially if we use a vocabulary that usually defines creator as author. Dublin Core has dc:creator. Dublin Core does not really have the concept of an archival originator, and I suspect that there are no other vocabularies that have addressed this need.

I would like to end this post with an insightful solution…but none such is coming to me at present. I suppose the most accurate one word description of the role of this person or organisation is ‘accumulator’ or ‘gatherer’. But something doesn’t sound quite right when you start talking about the accumulator. Sounds a bit like a Hollywood movie. Maybe gives it a certain air of mystery, but for representing data in RDF we need clarity and consistency in the use of terms.

Ditchling: A Craft Community

/ Jane Stevenson

Ethel Mairet's Ditchling workshop Photo: Ethel Mairet’s workgirls and apprentices at her ‘Gospels’ workshop, Ditchling, in the 1930s; copyright © the Crafts Study Centre, and courtesy of VADS.

In 1921, the letter-cutter, sculptor, artist and writer Eric Gill founded an arts and crafts colony in Ditchling, East Sussex. Known as The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, it was a unique experiment in communal life in the early twentieth century, and survived until 1989.

This month we highlight descriptions for the Ditchling collections held by The Crafts Study Centre, which are especially rich in the work of the calligrapher Edward Johnston (1872-1944) and the weaver and dyer Ethel Mairet (1872-1952).

All for one and one for all: the management of cultural collections

/ Jane Stevenson
Collections Trust Collections Management guide
Collections Management: A Practical Guide, by the Collections Trust

PAS 197 has recently been published as a new standard, sponsored by the Collections Trust and developed by the BSI. At this week’s meeting of the Archives and Records Association’ Data Standards Group we heard more about the involvement of archivists in the development of the standard.  This came about originally following a talk at the DSG by Nick Poole of the Collections Trust; there was a feeling that it was important to ensure the standard met the requirements of archives as well as museums and libraries.  Susan Snell (Archivist at the Library of Freemasonry) and Teresa Doherty (Collections Manager at The Women’s Library) put themselves forward to work on a standard for collections management that would be truly cross-domain, and look to fulfill the MLA ideal of one standard for all three sectors.

Essentially, what we needed was a standard that said what we do with materials in our care.  The Collections Trust approached the British Standards Institute (BSI) to develop a publicly available specification (PAS) that would provide a broad overview of how heritage collections should be managed. Susan and Teresa only became involved after a number of meetings, but from the presentation that they gave, we were in no doubt that they made their voices heard very successfully. Dr Norman James ( TNA) and Christopher Marsend (V&A) was also there representing our profession.

PAS 197 sets out clearly how you manage an archive and how and why archives are different from other collections. It gives a broad overview of how the collections should be managed and lists the key standards. Susan and Teresa explained to us the way that the different contexts within which we work can create barriers. For example, the museum fraternity talk about ‘objects’, which is not appropriate for archives (‘item’ was used instead in PAS 197, as the best compromise). There was a danger that the standard would not lead to cross-sectoral compatibility if these issues were not addressed, but it needed to be a consensus document.

Teresa emphasised that PAS 197 is not aimed at the average archivist or curator or librarian; it is aimed at senior managers, or at helping us to deal more effectively with senior managers, funders and other similar stakeholders. It codifies our best practice for our boards and financial advisers. It sets out what needs to be resourced.

Teresa pointed out a diagram within the standard that summarises the four main areas of work:

i) Developing collections – acquisitions and disposals

ii) Information procedures – catalogues, indeces, survey lists, accessions registers, etc.

iii) Access

iv) Care and conservation

This may seem straightforward to us, but it needs to be spelt out. We should have policies, procedures and documentation for these areas, and resources directed to each area.  Teresa and Susan pointed out that the scale should be suitable for the repository. A very small repository may just need one document with four paragraphs addressing each area of collections management. Also, it is a generic model, so it can apply to cross-domain collections. The four areas map to what is required for accredication for musuems and TNA self-assessment. The area that is not addressed in PAS is governance, which is also part of accreditation. This is addressed by other BSI standards.

Susan took us through a diagram that sets out processing collections and clarifies terminology – pre-accession, accession, appraisal, cataloguing, deaccessioning/disposal. So, for example, accession in archives is the same as acquisition in the museum and library world, and appraisal only happens in the archival world.

Susan and Teresa felt that working with the BSI was very productive. They were very professional and gave a neutral perspective, looking to ensure a balanced approach so that all voices were heard.  They also told us that we should be pleased with ourselves as a profession, as we lead the way in terms of the development of useful standards to help us do our work more effectively – see the appendix of the standard for proof of this!

We were informed that there is a move for archives to get accreditaion by 2012, to take over the TNA self-assessment scheme.  There may be issues around scalability here, but hopefully, if the accredication procedure is guided by PAS 197, it will be achievable for very small collections. Cross-domain accreditation may encourage institutions that are primarily museums or libraries to ensure that their archives are well cared for, catalogued to the appropriate standards and accessible for use.

The Collections Trust have now produced Collections Management: a practical guide (by Susanna Hillhouse, priced at £29.99).

If you are interested in getting a copy of PAS 197, being a BSI standard, it is a little expensive, at about £56. But, it sounds like it may be well worth having. Thumbs up to Susan and Teresa for helping to ensure that this key standard is relevant for archives as well as museums and libraries.

Democracy 2.0 in the US

/ Jane Stevenson

Democracy 2.0: A Case Study in Open Government from across the pond.

I have just listened to a presentation by David Ferriero – 10th Archivist of the US at the National Archives and Records Administration (www.archives.gov). He was talking about democracy, about being open and participatory. He contrasted the very early days of American independence, where there was a high level of secrecy in Government, to the current climate, where those who make decisions are not isolated from the citizens, and citizens’ voices can be heard. He referred to this as ‘Democracy 2.0.’ Barack Obama set out his open government directive right from the off, promoting the principles of more transparecy, participation and collaboration. Ferriero talked about seeking to inform, educate and maybe even entertain citizens.

The backbone of open government must be good record keeping. Records document individual rights and entitlements, record actions of government and who is responsible and accountable. They give us the history of the national experience. Only 2-3 percent of records created in conducting the public’s business are considered to be of permanent value and therefore kept in the US archives (still, obviously, a mind-bogglingly huge amount of stuff).

Ferriero emphasised the need to ensure that Federal records of historical value are in good order. But there are still too many records are at risk of damange or loss. A recent review of record keeping in Federal Agencies showed that 4 out of 5 agencies are at high or moderate risk of improper destruction of records. Cost effective IT solutions are required to address this, and NARA is looking to lead in this area. An electronic records archive (ERA) is being build in partnership with the private sector to hold all the Federal Government’s electronic records, and Ferriero sees this as the priority and the most important challenge for the National Archives. He felt that new kinds of records create new challenges, that is, records created as result of social media, and an ERA needs to be able to take care of these types of records.

Change in processes and change in culture is required to meet the new online landscape. The whole commerce of information has changed permanently and we need to be good stewards of the new dynamic. There needs to be better engagement with employees and with the public. NARA are looking to improve their online capabilities to improve the delivery of records. They are developing their catalogue into a social catalogue that allows users to contribute and using Web 2.0 tools to allow greater communication between staff. They are also going beyond their own website to reach users where they are, using YouTube, Twitter, blogs, etc. They intend to develop comprehensive social media strategy (which will be well worth reading if it does emerge).

The US Government are publishing high value datasets on data.gov and Ferriero said that they are eager to see the response to this, in terms of the innovative use of data. They are searching for ways to step of digitisation – looking at what to prioritise and how to accomplish the most with least cost. They want to provide open government leadership to Federal Agencies, for example, mediating in disputes relating to FoI. There are around 2,000 different security classification guides in the government, which makes record processing very comlex. There is a big backlog of documents waiting to be declassified, some pertaining to World War Two, the Koeran War and the Vietnam War, so they will be of great interest to researchers.

Ferriero also talked about the challenge of making the distiction between business records and personal records. He felt that the personal has to be there, within the archive, to help future researchers recreate the full picture of events.

There is still a problem with Government Agencies all doing their own thing. The Chief Information officers of all agencies have a Council (the CIO Council). The records managers have the Records Management Council. But it is a case of never the twain shall meet at the moment. Even within Agencies the two often have nothing to do with eachother….there are now plans to address this!

This was a presentation that ticked many of the boxes of concern – the importance of addressing electronic records, new media, bringing people together to create efficiencies and engaging the citizens. But then, of course,  it’s easy to do that in words….

Archives Hub contributors’ survey

/ Jane Stevenson

We would be very grateful if contributors to the Archives Hub could fill in this short survey for us. It is invaluable in helping us to understand your needs and priorities, and to plan for future development and enhancements.

Contributors’ survey: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/blog/?page_id=2317

This survey is specifically for contributors of archival descriptions rather than researchers. However, we are always keen to hear any views that you have on the strengths and weaknesses of the Hub, so do please email us with any feedback you have.

Many thanks,
from the Archives Hub team.

Opening up UK archives data (II)

/ Jane Stevenson / 1 Comment

This is the second post relating to the recent UKAD meeting, concentrating on the brainstorming that took place around digital and digitised archives.

The driving forces that were identified:

  • Crowd-sourcing – metadata generation
  • Attracts funding
  • Promotes access
  • Open up wealth of possibility
  • Remain relevant
  • Meet user expectations
  • Centres of excellence in digitisation – common approach
  • Collections already digitised are hidden – in silos – return on investment
  • Potential to capture richer information about users
  • Potential to draw people in
  • Increasing ‘digitisation on demand’ – needs to be harnessed effectively
  • Increasing amount of born-digital media need to be made accessible online – drive to discoverability of digital materials
  • Changing profession – becoming more confident in this area as a result of above
  • Web makes it much easier

The group felt that it all added up to a resouding “we have to do this!”.

The resistors included:

  • Systems don’t talk to each other
  • Insufficient metadata of legacy digitised material – retroconversion – cost*
  • Copyright/IPR – complex, lots of local specificity
  • Work needed to marry user generated content and standard metadata
  • Community resistance to UGC
  • Vast amounts of content – prioritisation is intellectually challenging
  • Bulk digitisation is happening commercially – restricted rights
  • Clashes with business models – or perception that it does (e.g. models based on commercial digitisation assume increasing return on investment; the opposite may occur if the most commercially enticing material digitised first)
  • Fears – grounded in truth – could affect funding: diminish user/visitor numbers on site, diminishes value of on-site expertise
  • Challenges in bringing catalogue data and digital object systems together
  • Query: not ultimately cost effective
  • Cost
  • Web makes it easier – but it’s hard to keep up…

The group looked at actions that are required:

1. Accrue evidence of user demand and current behaviour

  • Identify user communities (family, academic, student researchers)
  • Secondary research of existing analysis
  • Market research
  • Produce cost-benefit analysis – impact on site visits?

2. Systems talking to each other

  • People talking to each other about systems!
  • Develop definitive list of systems in use – a picture of UK situation > crosswalks/maps between (see Library world)
  • Needs to cover both catalogue and digital object management systems
  • Discmap?

3. Copyright/IPR

  • Produce decision tree to help archivists make decisions – risk assessment but beware risk aversion
  • Encourage sharing of experience/lessons learned
  • Gathering what has already been done

4. Impact of digitised resources

  • Gather existing articles/research
  • Share practice in assessing impact in differing contexts

5. Metadata and costs

  • Establish costs of differing levels of metadata generation
  • Identify how much data needs to be converted into digital metadata (how much is not online?)

6. Identify quick wins!

  • Working together to create user cases and examples, sharing experience, getting onvolved in Resource Discovery Task Force and linking projects to this

Of course, the gathering of such evidence can help us to see where we are and where we need to go, and also how to get there. But implementation is quite another thing. The UKAD Network is hoping to build upon this work to encourage collaborative initiatives and the sharing of expertise and experiences. We are considering events and training opportunities that might help. We do feel that it will be useful to create a stronger presence for UKAD, as a means to provide a focus for this work, and we are looking at low-cost options to do this.

Opening up UK archives data (i)

/ Jane Stevenson

UKAD meetingOn 14th April the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) met in Manchester to discuss challenges surrounding the opening up of archival data. We were looking to develop our understanding of the key issues driving or preventing these developments and to start pulling together an action plan. We also talked about digital and digitised archives, which I’ll blog about in a separate post.

We split into two groups to brainstorm driving and restraining factors. There was no chance of drying up – we all had plenty to say, and of course, the restraining influences grew rapidly, threatening to outstrip the drivers by quite some way. However, in the end we had a good balance, and we felt that the day had been very positive, although summing up the position is one thing, implementing actions is quite another. However, we hope to start putting some things into place that will help to take us along the road to promoting archival discovery.

We are looking to create a UKAD website, which will help us to promote UKAD to archivists and others, and we’ll let you know about that as soon as we can.

With thanks to Melinda Haunton from The National Archives, who, as the UKAD secretary, galliantly pulled together the large number of flip charts and made them into something coherent, here is a summary of the points.

Our driving forces included:

  • Perceived user demand
  • Time saving – easier to search, more effective customer service
  • Opportunities – for use of data and for benefiting from others’ use
  • Government policy drivers in this direction (data.gov.uk is evidence of Govt buy-in)
  • Rich data – think about opportunities to make the most of events, people, places, concepts within the finding aids
  • Serendipitous collaboration – working together is a big driver – a common way to hear about initiatives and experiences of others that could be of benefit to you
  • Potential to get new users – eg via GIS data connected to archives data – users who may not think of using archives
  • Standards exist to drive openness
  • Sustainability of resources – less tied to a single service if data is open
  • Enrichment and adding value – others can enrich our data
  • Archives making use of others’ open data – sector benefits from open data as well as contributing to it
  • Connecting archives – new narratives – data can coalesce around events, people, places, subjects
  • Exposure of holdings – especially for small repositories who have limited resources to promote themselves
  • Unlikely to be restrictions on opening up descriptive data (unlike digital/digitised archives)
  • Could glean evidence of impact – ways to gather usage statistics are increasingly effective – provide evidence of benefits
  • Opening up could reach out to excluded communities more effectively (different routes into archives)
  • Potential for wider impact – e.g. in demonstrating impact of academic research (RAE)

Our restraining forces included:

  • Lack of evidence of user demand – it may not be what we expect/assume
  • APIs – where they exist, are they used? (possibly not)
  • Users’ understanding what they’ll get – you won’t normally get direct access to archives through descriptions
  • Proprietary software providers – may not ‘play ball’
  • Archivists understanding of open data issues – need understanding to get buy-in
  • Access to developer expertise – archivists frequently find getting IT or developer support very difficult
  • Machine to machine – not visual, not easy to sell – need to understand the potential
  • Messy data – all the issues we are so aware of with different data sources; the balkanisation of data
  • Backlogs – if its not catalogued, we can’t open it up
  • Sustainability of resources
  • Data becoming out of date as it gets further from the original source – end up reusing out-of-date data
  • Contractual embargoes – e.g. involving commercial partners e.g. software providers
  • Dependencies  – potentially data may be dependent on other things – e.g. attached to schema, source code, IPR
  • Evidence of impact – can be difficult to get this and prove the worth of open data
  • Branding – or lack of it on reused open data – may affect funding if funders can’t see direct benefits
  • Loss of control causes fear – once its open anything can happen
  • Lack of ‘archival developers’ – very few developers with some understanding of archives and archival issues

Our Actions included:

  • Working together – collaborative evidence gathering and sharing, not competing – use examples/evidence from others
  • Evidence – case studies, knowing what researchers are requesting, evidence for advantages of digitising
  • Understanding funders – shared understanding of funders can help with internal funding
  • Archives developer days – bringing developers together as has been done with Dev8D – collaborative approach to programming
  • Strategy for approaching software vendors to get buy-in – appeal to their commercial interests, a concerted approach from aggregators may be more effective
  • UK based evaluation of archival cataloguing systems – still know little about percentages using different systems and evaluation of systems
  • Conference/workshops to raise awareness of buy in including practical demonstrations – must be interactive and practical and encourage sharing of projects, experiences and ideas

George Bernard Shaw: Man and Cameraman

/ Jane Stevenson

George Bernard Shaw The playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an avid amateur photographer at a time when the art was developing. In his lifetime he was known as a photographer but his collection has been largely left untouched since his death in 1950. Man & Cameraman aims to give his images back to the public.

This feature is illustrated with twelve photographs from the George Bernard Shaw Photographs collection at the London School of Economics. There is an introduction by Karyn Stuckey, Man & Cameraman Archivist at LSE, some suggested links, and some suggested reading (with links to Copac and Zetoc records).

George Bernard Shaw: Man and Cameraman.