Overview of projects of conceptual model development for archival description

1. Overview of projects of conceptual model development for archival description Workshop on Conceptual modeling for Archives, Libraries and Museums Helsinki, Finland, January 28-29, 2010 Claire Sibille, Archives of France, secretary of the ICA committee on Best Practices and Standards

2. This talk will cover: • Basic rules and standards for archival description • Projects for an archival conceptual model • ICA/Committee on Best Practices and Standards • An example of ICA standards implementation (and of their relationships) : ICA-AtoM software • NEDA project (Spain) • Series system and recordkeeping metadata project (Australia) • Elements of discussion

3. Archives • “Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control.” (Society of American Archivists, A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology)

4. Provenance • “Provenance is a fundamental principle of archives, referring to the individual, family, or organization that created or received the items in a collection. The principle of provenance or the respect des fonds dictates that records of different origins (provenance) be kept separate to preserve their context.” (Society of American Archivists, A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology)

5. Original order • Order in which it was maintained when it was last used by its creator(s) • The principle of original order, therefore, dictates that, wherever possible, this order must be retained when an archive is arranged • In some cases however, it is accepted that the original order of an archive may not be discernible and, in such cases, the archivist is free to impose a sensible order of his/her own

6. Hierarchical model of the levels of arrangement for a fonds

7. Multilevel Description • Archival arrangement is reflected in the description of archives through the use of multilevel description • Describe from the general to the specific • The information provided should be relevant to the level of description • Descriptions should be linked • Information should not be repeated

8. Contextual description • Provenance is the primary locus of archival intellectual control and description • Describing archives means providing information about their creators and about the historical context of their creation • Sometimes, the relationships of records with the functions that generated them are more important than the relationships of the records with the organizations that created them

9. ICA standards • ISAD(G) (1994, 1999) => archival materials • ISAAR(CPF) (1996, 2004) => entities (corporate bodies, persons and families) associated with the creation and maintenance of archives • ISDF (2008) => functions of entities associated with the creation and maintenance of archival materials • ISDIAH (2008) => institutions with archival holdings (archival institutions, museums, libraries, etc.)

10. Encoding standards • EAD = Encoded Archival Description (DTD,1998, 2002; XML schema [non finalized], 2007) => archival materials • EAC-CPF = Encoded Archival Context (XML schema, 2010) => corporate bodies, persons, families • EAC-F = Encoded Archival Context - Functions (project) => functions of entities associated with the creation and maintenance of archival materials • EAG = Encoded Archival Guide => institutions with archival holdings (archival institutions, museums, libraries, etc.)

11. Problems with ICA standards • Provide standardized sets of elements for describing archival materials, their repositories, their creators, and functions of the creators • Modeling is the next phase, the one in which entities are identified as well as their attributes and we can form the network of relationships among data elements • For instance, ISAAR(CPF) and ISDIAH entities share numerous attributes; an entity which is an institution with archival holdings is also going to be an entity which creates and maintains records

12. Problems with EAD • EAD is document centric standard, not a data-centric standard • Archival description is hierarchical, but we need to be able to form complete and flexible system of archival description that would interrelate record description, creator description and the description of functions and activities • reveal relationships within a single fonds that a hierarchical representation alone does not reveal

13. EAC-CPF • EAC-CPF is more data-centric: it defines a set of elements used to describe agent entities and the structure of interrelationships amongst those elements • EAC-CPF has been created to accommodate a variety of identities • Several projects aim to develop, implement and test the integration of EAC-CPF in existing international archival description and name authority systems

14. ICA work in progress • The Committee on Best Practices and Standards (CBPS) develops a single reference model for descriptive standards, enabling archivists • to describe different types of entities • to document these entities in relationship to each other at particular points of time, or over time • Using the ICA’s descriptive standards, it is now possible to develop a three-entity model for archival description

15. Entities / Relationships Model Functions are documented in / document are done by / do are created and used by Agents (CPF) Archival materials create and use

16. Linking ICA standards

17. ICA-AtoM • Acronym for 'Access to Memory’; an example of implementation of ICA standards (their relationships) • Web-based, open-source, multi-lingual archival description software • Enables institutions to make their archival holdings available online, especially those who could not otherwise afford to do so • Supports multi-repository collections • ICA-AtoM architecture includes a number of entity types

18. ICA-AtoM: entities and their relationships

19. Spain, NEDA project • NEDA = Normas Españolas de Descripción archivística (Spanish standards for archival description) • Commission appointed by the Ministry of Culture to develop a conceptual model for archival description and requirements of basic data for describing archival materials and functions • Part 1 was published in 2009 (identifying types of entities) http://en.www.mcu.es/archivos/MC/CNEDA/Documentos.html

20. NEDA: entities and their relationships do / are done by Agents Functions Mandates create and manage / are created and managed by govern / are governed by document / are documented in Archival materials have for subject / are subjects of have for subject / are subjects of Subjects Places

21. NEDA: types and subtypes of entities do / are done by Agent Person Family Corporate body Functions Sub-functions Activities/Processes Transactions Mandates create and manage / are created and managed by govern / are governed by document / are documented in Archival materials Recordgroup Series File ... have for subject / are subjects of have for subject / are subjects of Subjects Places

22. The Australian Series System • Used to describe both 'current' and 'historical' records • A more dynamic approach to the intellectual control of records • Accommodates documentation of multiple provenance • The series is the highest level of archival description • Creation of separate but linked descriptions of records, records creators and their functions and activities • The series system does not require fonds-level descriptive inputs, but it is capable of generating fonds-level descriptive outputs whenever such outputs are needed

23. Recordkeeping Metadata Project

24. Recordkeeping Metadata Project

25. Recordkeeping Metadata Project

26. Elements of discussion • A few standards and related formats but only modeling projects • Archivists are interested in modeling for providing interoperability in collaborative projects • For instance, the APEnet portal will enable archival resources to be harvested by the EUROPEANA

27. Elements of discussion • Methodology: • to start from conceptual models developed for ICA-AtoM or in Spain and in Australia and from the EAD mapping to CIDOC-CRM with a constant reference to ICA standards • or to develop a conceptual model from ICA standards on the basis of the other modeling projects

28. Elements of discussion • Methodology: one archival entity with 3 sub-types (for archival materials, agents and functions) • develop a common entity-type (super-type) based on attributes common to ISAD, ISAAR/ISDIAH and ISDF which might never be used to document anything but which would confer attributes on the sub-types (for instance, existence date) • bring the 3 sub-types into alignment with the super-type and with each other • the sub-entities could be used to confer attributes on sub-sub-entities

29. Elements of discussion • Methodology: • identify classes/subclasses and properties for archives • for instance, the archival entity Function could be broken down into multiple classes, each with specific properties, and the class E7 Activity could be enriched from ISDF • see whether targets of the properties are appropriate for archives

30. Elements of discussion • Work plan • periodicity of meetings • funding • participants (required competencies for developing a conceptual model) • relationships with ICA work (a meeting is planned at the end of May at Paris) and with EAD evolutions