A model to bring museums, libraries and archives together

January 26, 2010 / Jane Stevenson

I am attending a workshop on the Conceptual Reference Model created by the International Council of Museums Committee on Documentation (CIDOC) this week.

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) was created as a means of enabling information interchange and integration in the museum community and beyond. It “provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation”.

It became an ISO standard in 2006 and a Special Interest Group continues to work to develop it and keep it in line with progress in conceptualisation for information integration.

The vision is to facilitate the harmonization of information across the cultural heritage sector, encompassing museums, libraries and archives, helping to create a global resource. The CRM is effectively an ontology describing concepts and relationships relevant to this kind of information. It is not in any sense a content standard, rather it takes what is available and looks at the underlying logic, analysing the structure in order to progress semantic interoperability.

I come to this as someone with a keen interest in interoperability, and I think that the Archives community should engage more actively in cross-sectoral initiatives that benefit resource discovery. I am interested to find out more about the practical application and adoption of the CRM. My concern is that in the attempt to cover all eventualities, it seems like quite a complex model. It seeks to ‘provide the level of detail and precision expected and required by museum professionals and researchers’. It covers detailed descriptions, contexts and relationships, which can often be very complex. The SIG is looking to harmonise the CRM with archival standards, which should take the cultural heritage sector a step further towards working together to share our resources.

I will be interested to learn more about the Model and I would like to consider how the CRM relates to what is going on in the wider environment, and particularly with reference to Linked Data and, more basically, the increasing recognition of web architecture as the core means to disseminate information. Initiatives to bring data together, to interconnect, should move us closer to integrated information systems, but we want to make sure that we have complimentary approaches.

You can read more about the Conceptual Reference Model on the CIDOC CRM website.

English Language — subjectless constructions

January 15, 2010 / Jane Stevenson

This is (probably) a final blog post referring to the recent survey by the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) Working Group on Indexing and Name Authorities. Here we look in particular at subject indexing.

We received 82 responses to the question asking whether descriptions are indexed by subject. Most (42) do so, and follow recognised rules (UKAT, Unesco, LCSH, etc.). A significant proportion (29) index using in-house rules and some do not index by subject (18). Comments on this question indicated that in-house rules often supplement recognised standards, sometimes providing specialised terms where standards are too general (although I wonder whether these respondents have looked at Library of Congress headings, which are sometimes really quite satisfyingly specific, from the behaviour of the great blue heron to the history of music criticism in 20th century Bavaria).

Reasons given for subject indexing include:

it is good practice
it is essential for resource discovery
users find it easier than full-text searching
it gives people an indication of the subject strengths of collections
it imposes consistency
it is essential for browsing (for users who prefer to navigate in this way)
it brings together references to specific events
it brings out subjects not made explicit in keyword searching
it enables people to find out about things and about concepts
it may provide a means to find out about a collection where it is not yet fully described
it maximises the utility of the catalogues
it helps users identify the most relevant sources
it can indicate useful material that may not otherwise be found
it enables themes to be drawn out that may be missed by free-text searching
it can aid teachers
it helps with answering enquiries
it facilitate access across the library and archive
it meets the needs of academic researchers

The lack of staff resources was a significant reason given where subject searching was not undertaken. Several respondents did not consider it to be necessary. Reasons given for this were:

the scope of the archive is tightly defined so subject indexing is less important
the benefits are not clear
the lack of a thesaurus that is specific enough to meet needs
a management decision that it is ‘faddy’
the collections are too extensive
the cataloguing backlog is the priority

Name indexing is considered more important than subject indexing only by a small margin, and some respondents did emphasise that they index by name but not by subject. Comments here included the observation that subject indexing is more problematic because it is more subjective, that subjects may more easily be pulled out via automated means and that it depends upon the particular archive (collection). As with name and place indexing, subject indexing happens at all levels of description, and not predominantly at collection-level. Comments suggest that subjects are only added at lower-levels if appropriate (and not appropriate to collection-level).

For subjects, the survey asked how many terms are on average applied to each record. According to the options we gave, the vast majority use between one and six. However, some respondents commented that it varies widely, and one said that they might use a few thousand for a directory, which seems a little generous (possibly there is a misunderstanding here?)

Sources used for subjects included the usual thesauri, with UKAT coming out strongest, followed by Unesco and Library of Congress. A few respondents also referred to the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus. However, as with other indexes, in-house lists and a combination approach also proved common. It was pointed out in one comment that in-house lists should not be seen as lesser sources; one respondent has sold their thesaurus to other local archives. There were two comments about UKAT not being maintained, and hopes that the UKAD Network might take this on. And, indeed, when asked about the choice of sources used for subject indexing, UKAT again came up as a good thesaurus in need of maintenance.

Reasons given for the diverse choice of sources used included:

being led by what is within the software used for cataloguing
the need to work cross-domain
the need to be interoperable
the need to apply very specific subject terms
the need to follow what the library does
the importance of an international perspective
the lack of forethought on how users might use indexes
the lack of a specialist thesaurus in the subject area the repository represents (e.g. religious orders)
following the recommendations of the Archives Hub and A2A

Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons licence, Luca Pedrotti’s photostream

* the title of this blog post is a Library of Congress approved subject heading

Liberty, Parity and Justice at the Hull History Centre

January 4, 2010 / Jane Stevenson

This month we are marking our 100th feature by highlighting descriptions for the records of pressure groups held by Hull University Archives at Hull History Centre.

The records of pressure groups and campaigns represent some of the most significant and substantial archives held by Hull University Archives, They number around 40 collections from small, short-lived, groups to major continuing organisations. The most significant and substantial archive is that of Liberty, which recording the continuing development of civil rights in Britain over the past 75 years.

English language — subjectless constructions*

December 8, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

This is (probably) a final blog post referring to the recent survey by the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) Working Group. Here we look in particular at subject indexing.

Reasons given for subject indexing include:

it is good practice
it is essential for resource discovery
users find it easier than full-text searching
it gives people an indication of the subject strengths of collections
it imposes consistency
it is essential for browsing (for users who prefer to navigate in this way)
it brings together references to specific events
it brings out subjects not made explicit in keyword searching
it enables people to find out about things and about concepts
it may provide a means to find out about a collection where it is not yet fully described
it maximises the utility of the catalogues
it helps users identify the most relevant sources
it can indicate useful material that may not otherwise be found
it enables themes to be drawn out that may be missed by free-text searching
it can aid teachers
it helps with answering enquiries
it facilitate access across the library and archive
it meets the needs of academic researchers

The lack of staff resources was a significant reason given where subject searching was not undertaken. Several respondents did not consider it to be necessary. Reasons given for this were:

the scope of the archive is tightly defined so subject indexing is less important
the benefits are not clear
the lack of a thesaurus that is specific enough to meet needs
a management decision that it is ‘faddy’
the collections are too extensive
the cataloguing backlog is the priority

Reasons given for the diverse choice of sources used included:

being led by what is within the software used for cataloguing
the need to work cross-domain
the need to be interoperable
the need to apply very specific subject terms
the need to follow what the library does
the importance of an international perspective
the lack of forethought on how users might use indexes
the lack of a specialist thesaurus in the subject area the repository represents (e.g. religious orders)
following the recommendations of the Archives Hub and A2A

* the title of this blog post is a Library of Congress approved subject heading

Place names: we would be lost without them

December 7, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

According to the recent Indexing and Authority Records Survey (which I have been blogging about recently), archivists have a number of reasons why they think it is important to undertake place indexing:

to facilitate access
it is essential to resource discovery
users frequently request information about places
it is very important for local historians
it is good practice
to tackle inconsistencies in spelling and place name changes
to distinguish between places that have the same name
as a source of statistics (e.g. how many collections relate to individual countries)
it is an important part of the University’s diversity plan – many students are from other countries – shows that the collections are international
the records are arranged by place
it is a way to bring together disparate material in diverse collections
it helps identify and track boundary changes over time
it is used by national network sites (e.g. the Archives Hub)

The main reason not to index by place was given as a lack of staff resources, but some did also feel that it is not necessary. Other reasons were:

the search engine can pull out the place name
would need to index at item level for place entries to be useful and this is not practical to do
cataloguing and name indexing are the priorities
collections cover a small geographical area
collections are more thematic and name indexing works better than place indexing
not appropriate for the material (e.g. cartoons)
it has never been done
names are standardised to facilitate keyword searching

For those that do index by place, just as with names, the spread between collection-level, series-level, file and item-level indexing was pretty even, and the percentage of collections indexed by place varied enormously. The sources used for place names were varied, although most do seem to use the recognised gazetteers and guides. Others referred to the Library of Congress, local people and the documents themselves.

Many do use the NCA Rules, but there were some comments about the drawbacks of these -they do not recognise the three Yorkshire Ridings, they were created by a previous generation of archivists and are outdated.

We did ask whether any repositories use a co-ordinates based system, and only 3 responses were in the affirmative, though a couple stated that they were going to look into this.

Finally, when asked about reasons for the choice of rules or sources for place names, there were some varied responses:

being part of a set-up with other contributors
familiarity
ease
internationally accepted [standard], widely known and used
indexing was done before standards were introduced
it appears that no real thought has been given to this
standards were not precise enough when the decision was made

Place name indexing: is it necessary? One respondent said: ‘To put it bluntly we would be lost without it.’

Image: Flickr Creative Commons JMC Photos

“I’m Spartacus!’ (or giving a name authority)

December 7, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

This is the second blog post about the recent UKAD survey on indexing and name authorities (as stated previously a report on the survey will be made available shortly).

It seems to me that there is some confusion over what authority records actually are. When we came up with our survey it was clear that defining these terms is not always that straightforward and we often make assumptions that are not necessarily shared . We created a glossary for the survey, and defined a name authority record as:

“An entry for a person or corporate body that includes additional elements about the entity, providing contextual information as well as a name index entry.”

However, it is clear that some respondents were thinking of name index entries rather than more complete authority records. According to our survey, which received 93 responses, 34 maintain authority records that follow recognised rules or sources (although comments indicate that the number of these records may be very limited), 14 follow local practice and 29 do not maintain authority records. Bear in mind that responses were not per institution, so the figures can only tell us so much. But what they do indicate is: (i) there is some confusion about what authority records are (ii) some repositories maintain authority records that follow their own in-house practice rather than recognised standards (iii) it is important for archivists that the software cataloguing systems they use support the creation of authority records.

Many repositories use the original records to create authority records, which is one reason why archivists are in the best position to provide this kind of detailed and useful information to researchers. The original records can give a real insight into individuals, particularly lesser-known individuals. Many archivists base their name authority records on ISAAR(CPF), which gives a level of consistency, but many do not, maybe reflecting the fact that ISAAR is a recent standard (first edition 1996), and cataloguing is not a recent phenomenon.

If the authorised form of the actual name is following recognised rules, this provides for effective resource discovery. But in reality we know that there are often many versions of an individual out there. Here are the entries on the Archives Hub for David Lloyd George:

George David Lloyd
George David Lloyd 1863-1945 1st Earl Lloyd George Of Dwyfor Statesman
George David Lloyd 1863-1945 1st Earl Lloyd George Of Dwyfor Statesman And Prime Minister
George David Lloyd 1863-1945 Emph Altrender Epithet Prime Minister
George David Lloyd 1863-1945 First Earl Lloyd-george Of Dwyfor Prime Minister
Lloyd George David
Lloyd George David 1863-1945
Lloyd George David 1863-1945 1st Earl Lloyd George Of Dwyfor Statesman
Lloyd George David 1863-1945 1st Earl Lloyd-george Of Dwyfor Statesman

This illustrates quite nicely the problems of including an epithet, and even more clearly the problems of NCA Rules insisting on using the last element of a surname, even if it is a compound or hyphenated surname. I will never understand that one…sigh.

I love one of the responses to the question of which sources are used for authority records: ‘books, the internet, people’. In a way this reflects the diversity of sources used, which include encylopaedias, directories, books, journals and registers as well as donor knowledge. This shows how important the expertise of archivists is in using various sources to bring together valuable information about individuals, families and corporate bodies. Authority records maximise the benefits of the information archivists gather together for their work, bringing it to researches and giving them new ways into collections.

Archivists have to work with the software that they have, and sometimes this imposes certain limitations. One respondent mentioned the need to avoid using the ampersand, for example. Many repositories use CALM, and this is compliant with ISAAR(CPF), which should provide a great boost to archivists wanting to create authority records.

I do think that archivists should really be starting to think more carefully about the benefits of name authority records, and we need to have a more co-ordinated and collective approach to this. As one respondent put it, ‘We don’t create these at present, and I wonder whether we ever ought to? Surely this is most sensible as a global resource that we can contribute to and share.’ For my part, I would be very keen for the Archives Hub to facilitate this, and I hope that this is something we can look to in the future.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons Steeljam photostream

What’s in a Name?

December 2, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

I have just been taking a look through the results of a recent survey by the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) Working Group. The Working Group are getting together this week and will be looking at making the results public.

The main thing that struck me was the variety of responses. If we thought that this survey might clarify the situation, I’m beginning to wonder if all that it clarifies is that the situation is not clear!

I’m just going to concentrate on name indexing here, and leave place and subject for another blog post.

It seems that only a small proportion of archivists (as reflected in this survey) do not think that indexing is important. Of the 80 responses, 49 indexed to recognised rules and 23 indexed in line with local practice; 13 did not index and 23 went for ‘other’, which tended to mean they were in the process of creating an index, moving to an index following recognised standards or had legacy data with some indexes.

The survey revealed many reasons to create a name index as a means to access archives:

for enhanced resource discovery
many users want to search by name (respondents indicated it is a very popular search option)
it brings together collections that reference the same people
it is a way researchers look for connections
it aids interdisciplinary research
to identify people involved in particular works and their roles
it helps researchers to narrow down larger numbers of hits to just relevant collections
it promotes interoperability
it addresses problems with variants of the name, name changes, or different people with the same name (aids reliability)
it is at the heart of family history research
it is useful for answering enquiries
it is useful for selecting material, e.g. for exhibitions

When asked why name indexing is not carried out, there were a number of reasons:

free text retrieval makes name indexing redundant
lack of funding
lack of training
lack of staff resource
the current system does not support indexing
it has never been done
uncertainty about how to index effectively
uncertainty about benefits

Out of 100 responses, 46 felt that name indexing is very important, 33 felt it is reasonably important and 11 felt it is a low priority. The main reason given for name indexing being a low priority was the pressing need to deal with cataloguing backlogs and actually get some kind of description out there. It also seems that archivists do not always feel that they have the evidence to suggest that indexing is of benefit to researchers (or enough benefit to warrant the time involved).

The level at which collections are indexed was often given as ‘whatever is appropriate’ and clearly varied widely. I had expected it to be much higher for collection-level descriptions, but this was not the case.

We asked which sources are used for names, and again the answers were varied. Many people clearly do use the original records, with the National Register of Archives and Dictionary of National Biography coming in close behind. There was mention of Wikipedia, and even Google. In terms of rules, a majority do use the NCA Rules, and more use in-house rules than use AACR2. Several respondents said they use ISAAR(CPF), which is curious, as this standard is for name authority records and states that the main name entry should follow recognised rules (e.g. NCA Rules). I wonder if people were thinking of name authority records rather than basic index entries.

More on the survey to follow. And the UKAD Network will be publishing the results via the listserv, archives-discovery-network@jiscmail.ac.uk Make sure you sign up to this if you are interested in these kind of activities: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ARCHIVES-DISCOVERY-NETWORK

Christmas at the Co-op

December 1, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

This month we are celebrating Christmas at the Co-op, showing images of how Co-operative Societies prepared for the festive season. As well as photographs, there are examples of publications the Co-operative movement produced in the run up to Christmas, including war-time rationing recipes from the 1940s.

Visit to Seven Stories

November 18, 2009 / Bethan Ruddock

Yesterday I enjoyed a visit to Seven Stories, the centre for children’s books, and one of the contributors to our sustainable development project. One of the main reasons for my visit was to see the authority files they have created in CALM, for authors and illustrators. I also gave a quick demonstration of how to use the Hub’s new EAD Editor, which was very well recieved.

Once the business of the visit was over, Hannah (the archivist) showed me some of the treasures of the collection, which included some of Phillip Pullman’s manuscripts (in very neat handwriting!); original artwork by Jan Ormerod for her book ‘Sunshine‘; and the original illustrations for Noel Streatfeild’s ‘Ballet Shoes’. Included with these was, to my great excitement, the original copy of Pauline’s application for a stage licence, filled out (with book-appropriate information) by either Noel or her illustrator Ruth Gervis who, I discovered to my delight, was Noel Streatfeild’s sister.

I’m really pleased that Seven Stories are going to be adding their descriptions to the Hub in the near future, and I’d encourage you to have a look – I’m sure you’ll find plenty to interest you.

International archival standards: living in perfect harmony?

November 13, 2009 / Jane Stevenson

The International Council on Archives Committee on Best Practices and Standards met recently to look at the four ICA descriptive standards: ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDF and ISDIAH. It was agreed at this meeting to delay a full review that might lead to more substantial changes and to concentrate on looking at harmonization.

On the Hub we use ISAD(G), which has become very widely recognised and used. ISAAR(CPF) is something that would be important if we started to think about implementing EAC-CPF, enabling our contributors to create authority records for creators of archives. We think that this is the sort of development that should have cross-sectoral agreement, and we are actively involved in the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD), which provides a means for us to discuss these sorts of issues across the archives community in the UK.

As far as the International Description for Descriptive Function (ISDF) is concencerned, I feel that a great deal more work is needed to help archivists understand how this can be practically implemented. Our new EAD Editor does allow contributors to add functions to their descriptions, but this is just using the EAD tag for functions. To me, the whole issue of functions and activities is problematic because I am looking at it from the perspective of aggregation. It is all very well for one institution to define their own functions and activities, but how does this translate into the wider environment? How do we successfully enable researchers to access archives by searching functions and activities across diverse institutions?

I have not really given any thought at all to the International Standard Description for Institutions with Archival Holdings (ISDIAH) other than to basically familiarise myself with the standard. For us, the unique code that identifies the institution and the institution’s name is all that we require within our descritions. We link to the Archon details for the institution, and maybe it is in the Archon directory of UK archives, that ISDIAH should be implemented? I am not sure that it would be appropriate to hold detailed information about individual institutions on the Hub.

I will be interested to see what the outcomes of the Committee’s work are. I wonder whether we need a greater understanding of the standards themselves before we try to understand how they work together? Maybe adopting more consistent terminology and providing a conceptual framework will help archivists to appreciate what the standards are trying to achieve and encourage more use, but I am doubtful. I think that a few training days: ‘Understanding the ICA Descriptive Standards’ wouldn’t go amiss for many archivists, who may have only recently adopted ISAD(G), let alone thought about the implications of the other standards.

In the appendices to the minutes, there are some interesting points of discussion. Even some of the assumptions seem to be based on a greater understanding of the standards than most archivists have. For example, ‘if you use ISAD(G) in conjuction with ISAAR, the Admin/Biog history element of ISAD(G) becomes useless because the description of the record creator is managed by ISAAR’. Well, yes, but I’m not sure that this is so clear cut in practice. It makes sense, of course, but how do we relate that to all the descriptions we now have? Also, ‘ISAAR can be used to structure the information contained in the Admin/Biog history element of ISAD(G)’ – that makes sense, but I know of no practical examples that show archivists are doing this.

I wonder if we really need to help archivists to understand the standards – what they are, what they do, how they work, how they can benefit resource discovery – before we throw a conceptual framework at them. At the same time, I increasingly feel that ISAD(G) is not relevant to the modern environment and therefore I think there is a pressing need to review ISAD(G) before looking at how it relates to other standards.