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The use of Periods in British Museum Documentation

Development Use Interaction with other collections data Strengths and weaknesses Possible future relationship with other similar thesauri. The use of Periods in British Museum Documentation. Jonathan Whitson Cloud Documentation Technical Support Officer.

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The use of Periods in British Museum Documentation

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  1. Development • Use • Interaction with other collections data • Strengths and weaknesses • Possible future relationship with other similar thesauri The use of Periods in British Museum Documentation Jonathan Whitson Cloud Documentation Technical Support Officer

  2. Thesaurus has developed with digital systems Digital Documentation is a new Period in the British Museum’s history

  3. Period Thesaurus development: • BM’s purpose is world peace – getting to know each other – Equivalence • Based on Collections needs • Not mapping the world • “extensive but not exhaustive” • Candidate terms are created by curatorsDocumentation team responsible for structure but not content • Guiding principles are retrieval, presentation and analysiswhich sometimes conflict

  4. Period Thesaurus: • 1449 terms • Poly-hierarchical • Mixed hierarchy of Places and Cultures

  5. Period Thesaurus: parts of a Term • All the usual parts of thesaurus term • No fields to record time or place • Scope note used to guide use • Position in hierarchy gives some indication of time and place • All BM thesauri have been SKOSified as part of Linked Data project

  6. Period Thesaurus Use: • Period/Culture field is used entirely to indicate production period • Not used for associations or other references (although there is a need for this) • Not a mandatory field • Object record field • entry is limited toterms in the thesaurus

  7. Period Thesaurus Use: • Usual rules of double keying apply • Multiple terms can be selected if assigned production period runs over them…. • Uncertainty is recorded in a comment field • Uncertainty and certainty can be recorded together

  8. What is a Period? • BM Thesaurus is actually called MatCult = Material Culture • For BM is  linked to the production of Objects • Has elements of Time and Place (concepts of as much as fixed points) • A cultural label for a particular set of dates in a particular time, also production technique Useful to separate label from time and place (which can both be expressed exactly by loci AND also by their own cultural labels) Modern construct: Older one of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron age (Hesiod) for e.g.

  9. Why not define and structurally record the date and place in the term? • Place is a label – a signifier that allows categorisation – even when time and place are uncertain – adding date and place would actually make labels less effective • Definitions are not agreed and are prone to change • Date and place are recorded elsewhere in the record

  10. The Period field does not define the Period alone • Other fields give context and meaning to the Period • Most commonly: Date and Production Place and Technique • Other context fields: Material • Authority / Regnal Dates Production Person/s • School (Used instead of Period by Prints and Drawings) • State (Used by Coins and Medals) • Ethnic Group (Used most by ex Ethnographic ) • Find-spot • Associated Name, Place, Event • Some departments / collections do not use Period at all

  11. Interaction with other data Period is grouped with other production data Different disciplines and areas of study place different demands and make different assertions in their use of Periods

  12. Inference • Context of data can allow inference and this is used to expand / develop records • E.G. • Period of Minaean = Production Place of Ma’in • = Date of 500BC- 1BC • Why duplicate in Date and Place fields? • Non-academic audience may not know the period • Time and Place data has uses of its own • Retrieval and analysis best served by full records

  13. Period Thesaurus: Strengths and Weaknesses • Strengths: • Hierarchical and controlled • Conceptually and practically simple • Serves a wide range of academic and collections disciplines • Use varies with context • Organically fits collection • Curators have direct input • Simplification of Time and Place • Weaknesses: • Not a mandatory field, so not uniformly recorded • Time and place not structurally embedded in terms • Use varies with context • Not comprehensive • Makes no reference to authority other than BM’s own • Simplification of Time and Place

  14. Period Thesaurus: Links to other thesauri BM data available as SPARQL endpoint. Thesaurus could be extracted or referred to from that BM thesauri including Periods are freely shared upon request Could embed references (URIs) to other thesaurus in BM thesaurus term OR use directly in records • Questions: • Authority/Source: Referenced? How? • Upkeep – who? when? • Update – how?

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