Descriptive Cataloging Best Practice Manual
From VocabWiki
Forging the Future Best Practices
Contents |
[edit] General Description
[edit] Approved Sources
The VocabWiki — a database of subject, type, and format descriptors—includes only terms that require definitions. Common, straightforward words, such as might be used for keyword descriptors, are omitted. The terms themselves come from a variety of sources including the Getty’s Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), Union List of Artists’ Names (ULAN), and the Library of Congress’s Name Authority Files (LCNAF). Additional subject and type terms come from the Getty’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and controlled vocabularies from fellow cutting edge arts/new media associations: the V2 organization, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation. Additionally, if a term is not found in any of these sources, or if existing usage is found to be obsolete or incorrect, Franklin Furnace or Rhizome may specify its own usage.
[edit] Additional Terms not in Approved Sources
The need for this additional specification may be highlighted with three examples, one each for outdated, incorrect, and non-existent terms:
One of Franklin Furnace’s performance art events dealt with personal ads. While the LCSH includes ‘personals’ as a term, its citations highlight the following: “agony column (a newspaper column of person advertisements relating esp. to lost objects, missing relatives or friends, and marriage separations)”. <ref>[1]</ref>. This does not match the artist’s intended meaning of ‘personals,’ which follows the more contemporary meaning of “classified ads placed in order to find partners for relationships, sex, hobbies, etc.”.
A second example comes from Franklin Furnace’s various exhibitions of mail art over the years. The AAT defines ‘mail art’ as “works that include the act of sending materials through a postal or other delivery system; may be applied to the materials themselves”. <ref>[2]</ref> However, this is incorrect: Mail art objects must be "cancelled" by the postal system; "other delivery systems" could mean UPS, Fed Ex, bicycle messenger, art shipper, email, etc. and make the term meaningless.
Finally, some of Franklin Furnace’s events deal with the former Yugoslavia. A TGN keyword search for ‘Yugoslavia’ only brings up the term as another name for the current federation of Serbia and Montenegro. <ref>[3]</ref> Indeed, it lists each of the former Yugoslav republics individually. However, this current political reality does not negate the subject of Franklin Furnace’s events. In this case, it was necessary to create the term ‘Yugoslavia (former nation/state)’, modeled after the TGN’s term for the former Soviet Union: ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (former nation/state/empire)’. <ref>[4]</ref>
In all cases where Franklin Furnace specifies a new term or its own usage for an existing term, it will make a case justifying its use of the term, backed up with citations showing this usage. All such terms will be discussed with CIAO consortium members and Forging the Future Partners, and eventually submitted to AAT for inclusion.
[edit] Folksonomy, Creatoronomy, Taxonomy
Folksonomy is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing content description by ongoing collaboration. In contrast to traditional subject indexing, metadata is not generated only by experts, but also by consumers of the content. Usually, freely chosen keywords are used instead of a controlled vocabulary, and these keywords are made available through server-based delivery. Though relatively new, Folksonomy has gained wide acceptance and is firmly established in organizations like Wikipedia, Flickr, and Rhizome. The VocabWiki and the Rhizome ArtBase show folksonomy practices in action.
Creatoronomy is the practice and method of the creator/artist/author creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. The creator/artist/author has special editing privileges and generates metadata.
Taxonomy is the practice and method of managing content description by a formal classification system, often according to a hierarchical structure. Trained professionals assign metadata, and choose descriptive terms from a database containing controlled vocabulary terms and indications on how they relate to one another. The Franklin Furnace Database is based upon a taxonomy structure that accesses controlled terms through the VocabWiki. The Rhizome ArtBase uses taxonomy methods as well as folksonomy methods.
In the Forging the Future project, the folksonomy, creatoronomy, and taxonomy approaches are equally important and are meant to exist together to provide multiple layers of access, as described in the next two sections.
[edit] Staffing, Contribution & Method
To compensate for understaffing, the three tools, if used online, empower small organizations to partner with artists and the general public to assist with cataloging. This is in addition to any professional staff and library and information studies students.
Four categories of contributors are considered meaningful for searching:
[edit] Types of Cataloging
| General Public | Most inclusive, anyone can assign anything without restrictions. Best raw material. | Folksonomy |
| Creator / Artist / Author | Requires confirmation of the identity of the creator / contributor, and enjoys special editing privileges. Unrestricted official artist’s record. | Creatoronomy |
| Library Student | Could be part of school curriculum for grade. Restricted and reviewed by cataloger. | Taxonomy |
| Cataloger | Least inclusive, only an officially sanctioned individual. Must comply with best practice manual. Restricted. | Taxonomy |
[edit] Specific Work and Work Process
The task of assigning subject and form terms to contemporary performance art events, digital art, exhibitions, installations, etc., is comprised of many steps. This work involves performing hands-on examinations and viewing of primary and secondary materials from a collection of event documentation, reviewing or writing terse descriptions of events, determining appropriate subject and descriptive terms from existing controlled vocabularies (and/or creating or modifying terms as necessary), maintaining the in-house thesaurus with definitions, sources, and notes about the terms that the organization uses to describe the events, entering definitions and citations into the events and terms databases (in many cases AAT, LC, and TGN terms include such information; but not always), Specifically, the act of cataloging a single event at Franklin Furnace follows the following process:
[edit] Work Process
- Pick an event record
- Look over the event record in the database: check the date, and read notes or description of the event, if any previously exist in the database.
- Look for press clippings on the event in both the organization’s physical press files & its press database;
- If a physical clipping is present but has not been entered into the press database, add it to the database.
- If/when a clipping is present in both the press database and the physical files, link the entry in the press database to the entries in the events and names databases
- Read and look through the physical events files for the event in question in order to get a sense of what it was all about
- The most useful documents are the artists’ statements, the proposal notes on what they plan to do, slides, programs/posters/postcards, and press releases; however everything is helpful, from updates to phone messages to contract information.
- If the files are not in archival folders, rehouse.
- If any discrepancies between the folder information and the database information are noticed (e.g. wrong titles or misspelled artists’ names), correct and/or note as appropriate.
- If additional press clippings are found in the event files, make archival copies for the press files and enter information on the clipping to the press database (and link this new record to the corresponding records in the events and names databases).
- Enter press release or other descriptive information into events database if not already present.
- Look for presence of video, DVD, and/or mini-DV documentation of the event.
- Watch DVD, mini-DV or video, if extant; take notes and get a better sense of what the piece was about.
- Based on primary and secondary sources (physical files, video/mini-DV/DVD, press clippings and/or notes already in event database record), come up with possible appropriate subject and type/format terms, as well as other relevant keywords.
- Look these (and related terms) up in authorities, in the following order: VocabWiki, Franklin Furnace terms database, [AAT], [LCSH], Langlois/V2, Rhizome.
- If the desired terms are in the authorities, print out the scope/content notes; create entries for them in the terms database, and copy and paste the definitions into the terms database.
- If the term is an official term but has no definition listed, OR IF it is an official term that is being used slightly differently than the authority does, get at least three sources / citations backing up the variant usage and take definition from Wikipedia, a dictionary, and/or one of the relevant citation sources. Add information on the term to the citations document, noting any discrepancies between authoritative use and local usage, and print out the additional information on that term. Also add a pointer to the additional information in the term entry in the terms database.
- IF the term is NOT in the authorities, again, record a definition and at least three citations for the term, showing and justifying the organization’s variant usage. Add to the citations document, print out these citations/definitions used (along with sources), and add these into entries in the terms database as well, along with a pointer to the citations.
- Assign chosen terms (either already existing in or newly added to the terms database) to the event record in the event database.
[edit] Time Estimate
Following this process, a full time professional can assign keywords, subject, and type/format terms to an average of ten events per week. This estimate is based on a pilot vocabulary effort that Franklin Furnace conducted in the Summer of 2004. In this test run, Franklin Furnace’s intern (a recently-graduated MLIS holder with a background in the arts) assigned literal subject, broad content, and event format terms to 26 events during her first three weeks, and approximately ten terms per week thereafter. The estimate accounts for the fact that Franklin Furnace’s event files contain varying amounts of documentation. Some events included moving image (video and/or mini-DV) records; others did not. Some included detailed press information, extensive correspondence with the artist(s), numerous slides, etc., while others were so sparsely documented that they included only a calendar listing for the event. Similarly, group shows tended to be more extensively documented than individual shows, and also tended to ‘be about’ more diverse topics, requiring more extensive subject and content cataloging. Also, some events—whether by a single artist or a group—included more problematic or diverse materials and/or formats than others; these discrepancies also vary the cataloging time.
[edit] Conclusion
- Folksonomy: The General Public is often very perceptive for evaluating artwork. It builds a consensus for meaningful terms.
- Creatoronomy: Artist practitioners are always far ahead of the cataloging community regarding terminology. The creators have vocabulary terms for everything they do; they’re just not consistent in their application. Creators are the trailblazers.
- Taxonomy: Catalogers can later evaluate the work that’s been done and make informed decisions regarding a more refined record.
Best Practice is to use all three approaches to offer multiple layers of access. A system like this has to be made to work. It is really the only responsible, inclusive way to handle the explosion of New Media and New Media vocabulary.
[edit] References
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