Re: Archive Collection and Archived Item

Hi Richard,

thank you for further explanation.

I'm sorry, but I still don't get your point.

ArchivedItem is "an item in an archival collection", so it is included 
in an archival collection by definition. Putting ArchiveCollection as a 
sub-class of ArchivedItem, means that ArchiveCollection is a type of 
ArchivedItem, which is not consistent with the definition of 
ArchiveCollection ("A collection and/or archive of physical or digital 
items").

 From your words, I understand that your choice was driven by the need 
for specific properties. If that's the case, I wonder why we can't 
simply extend the properties of Thing, or find anyway some other solution.

Giovanni



Il 11/04/2017 14:45, Richard Wallis ha scritto:
> Hi Giovanni,
> 
> Your view of the generic nature of ArchiveCollection (/Therefore, a 
> fonds, a series, a subseries, a collection, a set of sparsed objects may 
> all be subsumed under ArchiveCollection according to the its 
> definition/.) is what I had in mind when I made the original proposal.
> 
> Both Jane and you express confusion as to why ArchiveCollection is a 
> sub-class of ArchivedItem, which is initially understandable.  The 
> reason I proposed it that way is to make pragmatic use of the way 
> Schema.org is constructed.
> 
> ArchivedItem <http://archive.sdo-archive.appspot.com/ArchivedItem>, when 
> added as an additionalType of any other Thing (CreativeWork, Product, 
> whatever) effectively makes available properties to describe attributes 
> of its membership in an archive (provenance, accessAndUse, 
> itemCondition, location, transfer, etc.).   If the Type of Thing is 
> unknown ArchivedItem could potentially be used as the only Schema Type.
> 
> When looking to describe an ArchiveCollection, the majority of those 
> properties would also be of use in its description.  To achieve this the 
> proposal could have either individually added these properties to 
> ArchivedCollction or, as I proposed, just make it a subtype of 
> ArchiveCollection.
> 
> ~Richard.
> 
> Richard Wallis
> Founder, Data Liberate
> http://dataliberate.com
> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
> Twitter: @rjw
> 
> On 11 April 2017 at 13:06, Giovanni Michetti <giovanni.michetti@ubc.ca 
> <mailto:giovanni.michetti@ubc.ca>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Jane,
> 
>     I would stick to the definition of ArchiveCollection, which is "A
>     collection and/or archive of physical or digital items."
>     (http://archive.sdo-archive.appspot.com/ArchiveCollection
>     <http://archive.sdo-archive.appspot.com/ArchiveCollection>).
> 
>     The Archival Extension doesn't define what an archive is (as a set
>     of objects--an archive is either an institution or an organization,
>     according to the definition of Archive). However, it is quite clear
>     that the definition of ArchiveCollection intends to cover any
>     aggregation of items, that is, the term 'archive' in the definition
>     is used in a very generic sense. Therefore, a fonds, a series, a
>     subseries, a collection, a set of sparsed objects may all be
>     subsumed under ArchiveCollection according to the its definition.
> 
>     Using a single class to identify any type of aggregations (including
>     no aggregation at all) is consistent with the most relevant archival
>     standards: ISAD uses "Unit of description" and EAD uses "Component".
>     Recently, ICA proposed a draft model (RiC) where they identified two
>     classes, Record and RecordSet (along with RecordComponent), which is
>     a bit different from the other models, yet is based on a single
>     class identifying any aggregation--that is, no need for fonds,
>     series, etc.
>     We can discuss whether we need to distinguish between the single
>     item and its aggregations, or it is better to just stick to a
>     simpler model, ie "Component" like in EAD. However, going to your
>     questions, I don't see any problem in considering both your examples
>     as being instantiated under ArchiveCollection. The same for the
>     properties.
> 
>     I don't understand very well why ArchiveCollection is a sub-class of
>     ArchivedItem in the Extension, so I share your doubts.
> 
>     As I wrote in some earlier message, I have many doubts about this
>     model. For this reason, I started investigating it further with some
>     colleagues of InterPARES Trust, in order to provide some systematic
>     comments on the Archival Extension. My aim is to share the comments
>     in a month.
> 
>     Regards
> 
>     Giovanni
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     Il 11/04/2017 11:16, Jane Stevenson ha scritto:
> 
>         Hi there,
> 
>         I had a huge email written as I was working this out, but I’ve
>         tried my best to distill it down to one essential question…..
> 
>         There is a type ‘ArchiveCollection', which has ’super types’ of
>         CreativeWork’ and ‘ArchivedItem’ with properties we can use to
>         describe our thing(s).
> 
>         To take an example, let’s say I wanted to have schema.org
>         <http://schema.org> markup attached to:
> 
>         A collection or ‘top level’ description:
>         https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb2607-ec/1-12
>         <https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb2607-ec/1-12>
> 
>         A lower level description:
>         https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb2607-ec/1-12/ec/7
>         <https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb2607-ec/1-12/ec/7>
> 
>         All I know about these are that one is ‘top level’ so that there
>         are no parent levels above it, but there may be child levels.
>         The other is lower level, so it has at least one parent level.
> 
>         Can I just treat the lower level ’thing(s)' as
>         type=ArchiveCollection? So, I can I use the properties from
>         CreativeWork and ArchivedItem for both the top level and lower
>         level group of stuff?
> 
>         I don’t want to distinguish between collection and item actually
>         within the archive; I just want to apply schema.org
>         <http://schema.org> markup using the appropriate types and
>         associated properties.
> 
>         Richard defined Collection:
> 
>         “ArchiveCollection: The collection/grouping/assemblage of
>         archived items. Descriptive properties reference the collection
>         as a whole.”
> 
>         I want to separate this out from what archivist thing of as an
>         archive collection, and treat it simply as a ‘group of things’
>         or even just one thing if that represents a stand-alone
>         collection. Is this correct?
> 
>         The archive.schema.org <http://archive.schema.org> defines
>         ‘ArchivedItem’ as ‘an item in an archive collection’. But I
>         thought it was a ‘type' that is applied to ArchiveCollection? I
>         didn’t think it actually related to ‘item’ meaning a single thing.
> 
>         I think there is some confusion in the documentation between the
>         term ‘ArchivedItem’, which I understand to be a type that can be
>         applied to an ArchiveCollection, with properties of
>         ‘archive-ness’,  and an actual item in a collection (and we
>         don’t usually describe single items anyway). It maybe doesn’t
>         help that the properties within ArchivedItem are ‘item’ - e.g.
>         itemDescription, itemLocation, itemProvenance. Can I see them as
>         archiveunitDescription, archiveunitLocation, archiveunitProvenance.
> 
>         NB - that’s why in EAD we use ‘unit’ and not anything like
>         ‘item’  - because we can only know that it is a unit within a whole.
> 
>         cheers
>         Jane
> 
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> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 April 2017 13:45:16 UTC