Re: Typology of memory institutions

Sofia


Your enquiry is connected with the Collections cluster we are developing; it is
a work-in-progress
athttp://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Cluster_CollectionsIt overlaps the
Library Address Data use case at
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Use_Case_Library_Address_Data
 
As far as I know, there is no standard typology of memory institution types - if
anyone else knows of one, please let us know!
 
One of the issues is that any typology is tied to one of the three primary
entities in collection-level description: Collection itself, Location
(sub-entities physical and electronic), and Agent (sub-entities person and
corporate body/family). Developing a single typology that fits all entities is
difficult.
 
For example, there is a typology of collection (itself) types given in the RSLP
CLDT enumerated list of collection types at
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/types/This typology is used in the Scottish
Collections Network (SCONE [http://www.scotlandsinformation.com/scone/] )
database. None of them is for "public library" or "folk museum", because the
collections in such memory institution types share all characteristics with
those in other institution types. On the other hand, there are typologies in
various classification and subject headings schemes (with a lot of variation)
for memory institutions based on their administration (that is, properties of
the Agent entity), curation (properties of the Agent and Collection entities),
architecture (properties connected with the Location entity), etc. An additional
complication is the intended audience for the collection, which could form a
typology; "public" would presumably be a category. But again there are
difficulties in finding a single typology for "audience" - they can be based on
physical/emotional development ("child", "adult") or educational level
("undergraduate", "school"). Then there are differences between the domains of
memory institutions: archives are often typified by person or organization, and
museums by subject (e.g. "folk", "natural history").
 
I looked for a single typology to use in SCONE, but that was several years ago.
SCONE uses a simple typology for libraries (Agent entity) consisting of "Further
education", "Higher education", "Public", "School", "Special". SCONE also uses
separate attributes of Agent and Collection entities for educational level,
subject, and other possible ways of describing "types" of library and other
memory institutions.
 
In your case, name and address information are attributes or properties of the
Location entity or class. But you may have to use a set of properties bounded to
the Agent and Collection classes to meet your functional requirements for a
typology.
 
Thanks for the enquiry - I will add some of this to the Problems and limitations
section of the Collections cluster.
 
Cheers
 
Gordon
 
 

On 03 February 2011 at 04:00 szapoun@uom.gr wrote:

> Greetings from Greece!
> My name is Sofia Zapounidou and with other two colleagues are thinking of
> serving as linked data basic information (name, address,etc) regarding all
> Greek memory institutions (libraries, museums, archives). Is there a typology
> of memory institutions? We would like to classify each institution according
> to
> a typology. The aim is to perform searches where e.g. a 'Special Library'
> inherits properties from the broader 'Library' concept.
>
> Best regards,
> Sofia
>
>
>