AB
Al Bersch
Mon, Oct 13, 2014 11:36 PM
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on
certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our
chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone
out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer
any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am
I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as
"hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there
is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option
there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will
need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification
just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on
certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our
chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone
out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer
any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am
I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as
"hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there
is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option
there for searching, along side "local"?
2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will
need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification
just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
CH
Chris Hoffman
Wed, Oct 15, 2014 7:43 PM
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
- Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
- When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
>
> Now the question:
> In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
>
> Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
>
> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
>
> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
>
> Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Al
>
>
>
>
> --
> Al Bersch
> Collections Systems Manager
> Oakland Museum of California
> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
> abersch@museumca.org
> 510-318-8468
> _______________________________________________
> Talk mailing list
> Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
> http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
AB
Al Bersch
Wed, Oct 15, 2014 11:37 PM
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really
helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to
which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think
one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms
for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have
consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have
historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same
collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become
muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such
as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we
currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary
(for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional
column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything
other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman chris_h@berkeley.edu
wrote:
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher
level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to
the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons".
I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been
helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a
standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g.,
for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies
for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one
that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes
have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs.
"identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained
vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to
specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done
is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced
Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so
you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy"
or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation
it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the
disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the
options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's
certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing
maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to
Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
- Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an
option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could
specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
- When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if
you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add
to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid
cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be
useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance
taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to
them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added
using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to
discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as
AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and
improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering
if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local),
and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an
option there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification
just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really
helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to
which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think
one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms
for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have
consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have
historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same
collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become
muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such
as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we
currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary
(for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional
column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything
other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman <chris_h@berkeley.edu>
wrote:
> Hi Al,
>
> Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
>
> (Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher
> level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to
> the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons".
> I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been
> helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a
> standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
>
> At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g.,
> for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies
> for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one
> that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes
> have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs.
> "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained
> vocabularies.
>
> We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to
> specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done
> is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced
> Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so
> you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy"
> or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation
> it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the
> disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
>
> Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the
> options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's
> certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing
> maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to
> Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
>
> To your questions:
>
> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
> am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
> as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
> there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an
> option there for searching, along side "local"?
>
> You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could
> specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
>
> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
> authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
> vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
> common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
> as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
> hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
> insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
> will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
> standards.
>
> CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if
> you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add
> to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid
> cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be
> useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance
> taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to
> them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added
> using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
>
> Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to
> discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
> Chris
> UC Berkeley
>
>
> On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
>
> Now the question:
> In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
> Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
> authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
> want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
> the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
> vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
> the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
>
> Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as
> AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and
> improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering
> if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local),
> and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
>
> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
> am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
> as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
> there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an
> option there for searching, along side "local"?
>
> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
> authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
> vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
> common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
> as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
> hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
> insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
> will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
> standards.
>
> Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification
> just let me know.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Al
>
>
>
>
> --
> Al Bersch
> Collections Systems Manager
> Oakland Museum of California
> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
> abersch@museumca.org
> 510-318-8468
> _______________________________________________
> Talk mailing list
> Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
>
> http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
>
>
>
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
CH
Chris Hoffman
Thu, Oct 16, 2014 4:17 PM
Thanks, Al. Yes, you have the additional and wonderful challenge of designing this to work for multiple domains within one instance of CollectionSpace! I'll be very interested to learn whether you end up creating disciplinary-specific fields tied to distinct vocabularies, or some other approach. This has interesting implications for outputs from the system -- reports, public portals, etc. You could build some export rules that combine the discipline-specific fields into those output fields where it is maybe OK to present that a "tree" is maybe the same as or is sufficiently similar to another "tree" (this is SO confusing).
Chris
On Oct 15, 2014, at 4:37 PM, Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org wrote:
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary (for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman chris_h@berkeley.edu wrote:
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
- Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
- When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Thanks, Al. Yes, you have the additional and wonderful challenge of designing this to work for multiple domains within one instance of CollectionSpace! I'll be very interested to learn whether you end up creating disciplinary-specific fields tied to distinct vocabularies, or some other approach. This has interesting implications for outputs from the system -- reports, public portals, etc. You could build some export rules that combine the discipline-specific fields into those output fields where it is maybe OK to present that a "tree" is maybe the same as or is sufficiently similar to another "tree" (this is SO confusing).
Chris
On Oct 15, 2014, at 4:37 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
> Hello Chris,
>
> Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary (for instance "style").
>
> The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything other than our local vocabularies.
>
> thanks again,
>
> Al
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman <chris_h@berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Hi Al,
>
> Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
>
> (Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
>
> At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
>
> We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
>
> Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
>
> To your questions:
>> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
> You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
>
>> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
> CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
>
> Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
> Chris
> UC Berkeley
>
>
> On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
>>
>> Now the question:
>> In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
>>
>> Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
>>
>> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
>>
>> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
>>
>> Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Al
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Al Bersch
>> Collections Systems Manager
>> Oakland Museum of California
>> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
>> abersch@museumca.org
>> 510-318-8468
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk mailing list
>> Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
>> http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
>
>
>
>
> --
> Al Bersch
> Collections Systems Manager
> Oakland Museum of California
> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
> abersch@museumca.org
> 510-318-8468
MF
Megan Forbes
Thu, Oct 16, 2014 6:12 PM
Thanks for the great discussion, Al and Chris!
As Chris mentioned we recently had a meeting about the logistics of incorporating the Getty (and other) vocabularies into CollectionSpace via web service rather than by importing them directly into CSpace. As John Lowe pointed out at the meeting - at 1.9 million terms, importing the Getty TGN is no small undertaking.
If anyone is interested in participating in further planning and design conversations about this functionality, please let me know. We have several existing and upcoming implementers who are very interested making this happen, and we'd like to work toward a functionality/technical specification that covers all the challenges listed below - and more!
I look forward to continuing this conversation.
Best regards,
Megan
Megan Forbes
CollectionSpace Community Outreach and Support Manager
megan.forbes@lyrasis.org
800.999.8558 x 2917 Main
917.267.9676 Cell
meganbforbes Skype
From: Talk talk-bounces@lists.collectionspace.org on behalf of Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:37 PM
To: Chris Hoffman
Cc: talk
Subject: Re: [Talk] use of thesauri
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary (for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman <chris_h@berkeley.edumailto:chris_h@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.orgmailto:abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.orgmailto:abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468tel:510-318-8468
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.orgmailto:Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.orgmailto:abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Thanks for the great discussion, Al and Chris!
As Chris mentioned we recently had a meeting about the logistics of incorporating the Getty (and other) vocabularies into CollectionSpace via web service rather than by importing them directly into CSpace. As John Lowe pointed out at the meeting - at 1.9 million terms, importing the Getty TGN is no small undertaking.
If anyone is interested in participating in further planning and design conversations about this functionality, please let me know. We have several existing and upcoming implementers who are very interested making this happen, and we'd like to work toward a functionality/technical specification that covers all the challenges listed below - and more!
I look forward to continuing this conversation.
Best regards,
Megan
Megan Forbes
CollectionSpace Community Outreach and Support Manager
megan.forbes@lyrasis.org
800.999.8558 x 2917 Main
917.267.9676 Cell
meganbforbes Skype
________________________________
From: Talk <talk-bounces@lists.collectionspace.org> on behalf of Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:37 PM
To: Chris Hoffman
Cc: talk
Subject: Re: [Talk] use of thesauri
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary (for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman <chris_h@berkeley.edu<mailto:chris_h@berkeley.edu>> wrote:
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons". I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases. E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.) We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g., "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy" or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace. It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org<mailto:abersch@museumca.org>> wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local), and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an example.
1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more clarification just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org<mailto:abersch@museumca.org>
510-318-8468<tel:510-318-8468>
_______________________________________________
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.org<mailto:Talk@lists.collectionspace.org>
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org<mailto:abersch@museumca.org>
510-318-8468
AB
Al Bersch
Thu, Oct 16, 2014 8:15 PM
Hi Megan,
It's great to hear there is an ongoing discussion about incorporating
vocabularies into CSpace. The OMCA team isn't sure what direction we want
to go with this for now, but we'd be interested to take part in future
planning, so if there's any way I can help or participate, let me know.
Thanks again,
Al
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 11:12 AM, Megan Forbes megan.forbes@lyrasis.org
wrote:
Thanks for the great discussion, Al and Chris!
As Chris mentioned we recently had a meeting about the logistics of
incorporating the Getty (and other) vocabularies into CollectionSpace via
web service rather than by importing them directly into CSpace. As John
Lowe pointed out at the meeting - at 1.9 million terms, importing the Getty
TGN is no small undertaking.
If anyone is interested in participating in further planning and design
conversations about this functionality, please let me know. We have several
existing and upcoming implementers who are very interested making this
happen, and we'd like to work toward a functionality/technical
specification that covers all the challenges listed below - and more!
I look forward to continuing this conversation.
Best regards,
Megan
Megan Forbes
CollectionSpace Community Outreach and Support Manager
megan.forbes@lyrasis.org megan.forbes@lyrasis.org
800.999.8558 x 2917 Main
917.267.9676 Cell
meganbforbes Skype
From: Talk talk-bounces@lists.collectionspace.org on behalf of Al
Bersch abersch@museumca.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:37 PM
To: Chris Hoffman
Cc: talk
Subject: Re: [Talk] use of thesauri
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really
helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to
which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think
one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms
for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have
consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have
historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same
collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become
muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such
as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we
currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary
(for instance "style").
The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional
column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything
other than our local vocabularies.
thanks again,
Al
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman chris_h@berkeley.edu
wrote:
Hi Al,
Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
(Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher
level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to
the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons".
I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been
helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a
standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases.
E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate
vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We
have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.)
We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g.,
"collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any
externally maintained vocabularies.
We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached
to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've
done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced
Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so
you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy"
or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation
it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the
disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of
the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace.
It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing
maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to
Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
To your questions:
- Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as
an option there for searching, along side "local"?
You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could
specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
- When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
standards.
CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if
you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add
to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid
cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be
useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance
taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to
them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added
using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to
discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
Chris
UC Berkeley
On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch abersch@museumca.org wrote:
Hello all,
All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
Now the question:
In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as
AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and
improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering
if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local),
and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an
example.
-
Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local
authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same
item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced
search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary
show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
-
When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
standards.
Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more
clarification just let me know.
Thanks!
Al
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
_______________________________________________
Talk mailing list
Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
Hi Megan,
It's great to hear there is an ongoing discussion about incorporating
vocabularies into CSpace. The OMCA team isn't sure what direction we want
to go with this for now, but we'd be interested to take part in future
planning, so if there's any way I can help or participate, let me know.
Thanks again,
Al
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 11:12 AM, Megan Forbes <megan.forbes@lyrasis.org>
wrote:
> Thanks for the great discussion, Al and Chris!
>
>
> As Chris mentioned we recently had a meeting about the logistics of
> incorporating the Getty (and other) vocabularies into CollectionSpace via
> web service rather than by importing them directly into CSpace. As John
> Lowe pointed out at the meeting - at 1.9 million terms, importing the Getty
> TGN is no small undertaking.
>
>
> If anyone is interested in participating in further planning and design
> conversations about this functionality, please let me know. We have several
> existing and upcoming implementers who are very interested making this
> happen, and we'd like to work toward a functionality/technical
> specification that covers all the challenges listed below - and more!
>
>
> I look forward to continuing this conversation.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Megan
>
>
>
> Megan Forbes
> CollectionSpace Community Outreach and Support Manager
> *megan.forbes@lyrasis.org <megan.forbes@lyrasis.org>*
> 800.999.8558 x 2917 Main
> 917.267.9676 Cell
> meganbforbes Skype
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Talk <talk-bounces@lists.collectionspace.org> on behalf of Al
> Bersch <abersch@museumca.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:37 PM
> *To:* Chris Hoffman
> *Cc:* talk
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk] use of thesauri
>
> Hello Chris,
>
> Thanks for getting back to me about the vocabularies. This is really
> helpful information, and I think we have a lot to consider with regard to
> which vocabularies, if any, we want to use besides our "local" one. I think
> one concern is a fear that it would be too confusing to have multiple terms
> for the same thing, for example a local tree and an AAT tree, and not have
> consistency with those terms. To complicate things further, because we have
> historians, art historians, and scientists all working with the same
> collection, the different cataloging standards and vocabularies become
> muddled fairly quickly. we've talked about using common vocabularies (such
> as AAT or Chenhall) to disciplinary-specific fields, or fields which we
> currently don't use, but which would benefit from a structured vocabulary
> (for instance "style").
>
> The customization you described that lists the vocabulary in an additional
> column for searches sounds absolutely helpful should we opt to use anything
> other than our local vocabularies.
>
> thanks again,
>
> Al
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Chris Hoffman <chris_h@berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Al,
>>
>> Sorry for the late response to this important topic!
>>
>> (Note: For convenience at UCB, we refer to "authorities" as the higher
>> level namespace, like "person". We use the term "vocabularies" to refer to
>> the instances of an "authority", e.g., "local persons" and "ULAN persons".
>> I'll use that authority/vocabulary distinction below. This has been
>> helpful at UC Berkeley, but we acknowledge there doesn't seem to be a
>> standard accepted way of talking about these things across museums.)
>>
>> At UC Berkeley, we are using multiple vocabularies in some cases.
>> E.g., for the UCJEPS Herbaria taxonomy authority, we have separate
>> vocabularies for "default scientific taxonomy" and "common names". (We
>> have another one that is really an artifact of some legacy data issues.)
>> We also sometimes have multiple person or organization vocabularies (e.g.,
>> "collectors" vs. "identifiers"), but we're not currently using any
>> externally maintained vocabularies.
>>
>> We do have to be careful about which specific vocabularies get attached
>> to specific fields. It can get confusing. One local customization we've
>> done is that when you do a search for terms (via Find and Edit, or Advanced
>> Search), the list results provide an additional column for vocabulary, so
>> you see there whether the term is from e.g., "default scientific taxonomy"
>> or "common names". Unfortunately you don't get any visual differentiation
>> it the term completion widget, nor can you add "vocabulary name" to the
>> disambiguation information available when you hover over a term.
>>
>> Megan and Richard visited us via Skype recently to talk about some of
>> the options for incorporating Getty vocabularies into CollectionSpace.
>> It's certainly possible to import terms, but the challenge is the ongoing
>> maintenance. It would be wonderful if one day CSpace just linked out to
>> Getty web services or the upcoming Linked Open Data service!
>>
>> To your questions:
>>
>> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local authority,
>> am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same item, such
>> as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced search that
>> there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary show up as
>> an option there for searching, along side "local"?
>>
>> You're correct that "hat" could be in both vocabularies. Yes, you could
>> specify that you search only for terms from one or the other vocabulary.
>>
>> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
>> authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
>> vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
>> common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
>> as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
>> hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
>> insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
>> will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
>> standards.
>>
>> CSpace permissions currently work at the overall authority level, so if
>> you give someone privileges to add terms to "person" they'll be able to add
>> to your "local persons" and "ULAN persons" vocabularies. Yes, rigid
>> cataloging standards (if you have them and can make them work!) will be
>> useful here! We also have developed reports that show for instance
>> taxonomic term records added recently that don't have XYZ fields added to
>> them. Registrars and others can run these reports to find terms added
>> using the term completion widget that don't have needed metadata.
>>
>> Clearly there are plenty of important challenges here! We're happy to
>> discuss this further any time, so thanks for bringing this up.
>> Chris
>> UC Berkeley
>>
>>
>> On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Al Bersch <abersch@museumca.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> All the work on v4.1 looks fabulous. Congratulations.
>>
>> Now the question:
>> In our mapping at OMCA, we're using our local authority (our lexicon in
>> Argus) to map to the Concept, Person, Org, Place, Taxon, and Citation
>> authorities. A question has come up as to whether, going forward, we would
>> want to (or if it's even possible for us) to use common thesauri loaded in
>> the system (such as ULAN or the Getty AAT thesaurus) alongside our local
>> vocabulary. So far in Argus everything is local, with the option to site
>> the source as AAT, Chenhall, ULAN, etc.
>>
>> Ultimately, in an ideal world, we'd like to use common thesauri such as
>> AAT on certain fields to standardize our data entry and retrieval and
>> improve our chances for collaborating on open data projects. I'm wondering
>> if anyone out there is using multiple thesauri (pre-loaded and local),
>> and can offer any insight. I'll use the Getty AAT thesaurus as an
>> example.
>>
>> 1. Because AAT would have a different hierachy than the local
>> authority, am I correct in that there would be multiple terms for the same
>> item, such as "hat" in AAT, and "hat" in local? I see in the advanced
>> search that there is a "vocabulary" drop-down. Would the AAT vocabulary
>> show up as an option there for searching, along side "local"?
>>
>> 2. When adding terms in cspace, if entering something in an
>> authority-controlled field, do users have the ability to add to common
>> vocabularies, if in use, or are they forced to make the term local? If a
>> common vocabulary could be edited, there is a fear that the data would get
>> as mucky as the local one. On the other hand, if the user wanted the
>> hierarchy to stay consistent with the new term, it might make sense to
>> insert it into a pre-loaded vocabulary. I realize some of these issues
>> will need to be solved the old fashioned way, with rigid cataloging
>> standards.
>>
>> Thank you to anyone who has thoughts here. If you need more
>> clarification just let me know.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Al
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Al Bersch
>> Collections Systems Manager
>> Oakland Museum of California
>> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
>> abersch@museumca.org
>> 510-318-8468
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk mailing list
>> Talk@lists.collectionspace.org
>>
>> http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Al Bersch
> Collections Systems Manager
> Oakland Museum of California
> 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
> abersch@museumca.org
> 510-318-8468
>
--
Al Bersch
Collections Systems Manager
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607
abersch@museumca.org
510-318-8468
