Different approaches to documentation and traditions of information handling
Vocabularies are the bridge
Documentation and the Web

Different approaches to documentation and traditions of information handling

What is documentation and why is there such variation in practice among the various communities who deal with art, architecture, and material culture? Documentation includes analyzing, organizing, and recording information in order to provide access to cultural heritage resources. Methodology and practice in this area is dependent upon the nature, role, and perspectives of the holders of the information, as well as the nature of the information itself.

Four major approaches to documentation of art and material culture have evolved over time: archival, library, museum, and visual resources. It is important to note that all four of these communities are currently re-examining these traditional practices as they attempt to deal with the digitization and networked access to their materials. In order to appreciate this diversity, note how these four approaches compare, contrast, and converge:

THE ARCHIVAL APPROACH
The archival approach involves the arrangement and description of records, personal papers, and manuscripts.

The archival approach:

• emphasizes the function and provenance of archival materials.
• applies to documents, images, artifacts, sound recordings, moving images, and electronic records.
• is based on the creation of a finding aid, which is a document that lists or describes a body of records within an archive, providing accesss to the user.
• describes collections, series, and groups of related materials, as opposed to focusing on individual items. (though there is a limited amount of item-level cataloging).
• is based on well-established standards, such as the MARC format, RAD, and APPM, as well as emerging ones such as the EAD.
• includes methodologies for the creation of catalog records, inventories, and registers.
• is based on the concept that the collection "in hand" is unique material.
• is not yet universally computerized.
• includes the use of controlled vocabularies, such as LCSH and AAT.
• is moving towards data-sharing initiatives that are motivated by the need for global access to unique and primary research material.

Read more about archival documentation in the Readings section.

THE LIBRARY APPROACH
The library approach involves the cataloging and classification of books and other published textual materials. This tradition is also known as bibliographic cataloging and classification.

The library approach:

• is based on the concept that the item "in hand" is one of many of the same thing. For this reason, data-sharing is seen as economically advantageous (i.e., copy cataloging is cheaper that original cataloging).
• is guided by principles and practice originating from national leader institutions (e.g., the Library of Congress and the British Library).
• is taught in schools of library and information science, where the curriculum includes controlled vocabularies, authority practice, and subject analysis.
• places a high value on subject access.
• is facilitated by a long-standing tradition of data sharing, now dominated by national utilities and consortia, such as the RLG and OCLC.
• is based on well-established standards, such as the MARC format and AACR2, and it continues to develop new ones (e.g., the "core record concept" and Z39.50).
• includes methodologies for authority work and the use of controlled vocabularies. LCSH is currently the most prevalent vocabulary in use.
• began to be computerized in the 1970s.
• was developed to provide "public access" to the cataloged materials.
• is based on item-level cataloging, i.e., a catalog record is created for an individual item, not a collection.
• is enhanced by analytics and abstracting/indexing services (such as BHA and the Avery Index).

Here is an example of a cataloging record for the book, Mycenaen art from Cyprus. The record is displayed in MARC format from the Williams College Library Catalog:

(Williams College Libraries, http://www.williams.edu/library/.)

Below is an exhibition catalog record display from the University of Texas at Austin OPAC:

University of Texas at Austin Libraries, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/.)

Read more about library cataloging and classification in the Readings section.

THE MUSEUM APPROACH
The museum approach involves the documentation of museum objects (e.g., works of art, artifacts, and specimens).

The museum approach:

• is complex, incorporating diverse topics of information about an object, such as physical description, provenance, conservation, photographic documentation, and research data.
• is based on the concept that the item "in hand" is unique.
• has seen an increase in data-sharing initiatives in the last several years (e.g., the MESL and REACH projects). One exceptional example is the CHIN national inventories, which began in 1972.
• uses classification schemes often based on departmental divisions or taxonomies such as Nomenclature.
• incorporates images as well as textual data.
• is beginning to adopt authority control as basic practice.
• has gained importance as a valuable resource that can be re-purposed for public information systems, particularly by presenting information about their collections to the public through the Internet
• uses collection management systems that are geared to internal users (e.g., curators, registrars).
• uses diverse sources for terminology, such as ULAN, AAT, TGN and local lists
• is beginning to adopt standards such as CDWA.

This is a museum object record from the collection management database of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, http://www.mfa.org/)

Read more about museum documentation in the Readings section.

THE VISUAL RESOURCES APPROACH
The Visual Resources approach involves the cataloging, classification, and indexing of images.

The visual resources approach:

• provides access to images that enrich the educational experience. Many VR collections are in a university environment.
• describes both single items and sets of images.
  has complex levels of description, involving both the item "in hand" (e.g., a slide) and the content of the image.
  
• is working towards adoption of data standards, such as the "Core Categories for Visual Resources" and MARC.
• incorporates vocabularies, such as AAT, ULAN, and TGN but local lists and files are often still used.
• places a high value on subject access, with the aid of systems such as ICONCLASS.
  is being implemented in data-sharing demonstration projects such as the VISION project with RLG.
• has close ties with the museum documentation tradition in the description of images of museum objects.
• uses highly developed, although non-standardized classification systems.

You can find, and View an example of a Visual Resources cataloging record from the SPIRO database at the University of California at Berkeley (http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/spiro/).

Read more about visual resources cataloging in the Readings section.

Vocabularies are the bridge

The above documentation profiles show that vocabularies can offer a common ground for these different approaches. Vocabularies help to bring together resources in two ways:

1. The vocabularies that are being used in the four approaches are system-, application-, and media-independent. For example, a thesaurus like the AAT provides terminology that can be applied in a variety of documentation situations ranging from highly structured records, such as those in MARC format, to free-text descriptions of museum objects using keywords.

2. Vocabularies are structured to provide links between terms and concepts that relate to each other in various ways: for example, synonyms, spelling variants, and other related concepts. These links create an intellectual path that, if followed, can improve access to art and material culture. (See Chapter 4 for an explanation of how vocabularies work.)

Using just three AAT descriptors and their linked synonyms (historical terms, spelling variants, and alternate forms of speech) as search terms, the following results demonstrate how vocabularies can be used across communities to link cultural heritage information.

Slide of a painting by Aaron Douglas, The Negro in an African Setting, in the collection of the New York Public Library. Schomburg Center. This slide resides in the University of South Florida College of Fine Arts slide collection.   Dissertation by Jeff Richardson Donaldson, titled Generation "306-Harlem, New York (Northwestern University, 1974). Listed in the abstracting and indexing service International Repertory of the literature of Art (RILA). Personal Papers of the black artist Palmer Hayden in the Archives of American Art collection. Located through the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System catalog.     AAT TERMS USED     1. Harlem Renaissance     synonyms:           Negro Renaissance           New Negro Movements           Renaissance, Harlem           Renaissance, Negro     2. African American     synonyms:           Negro           Black (style)           Afro-American     3. artists           synonyms:           artist           artist's           artists' Digitized image of a photograph of Augusta Savage alongside her sculpture, Realization, from the collections of the Archives of American Art. Located through the Archives of American Art Web guide. Exhibition catalog, Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America Introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell; essays by David Driskell, David Levering Lewis, and Deborah Willis Ryan (The Studio Museum in Harlem: New York: Harry N. Abrahms, 1987). Found in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Online Library Catalog. Transcript of an interview with "William A. Cooper, Negro Artist" from the "American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Library of Congress. Located through the American Memory Digital Library Web site.   Photograph of the artist Romare Bearden in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Bearden was one of the curators of the seminal exhibition, Harlem on my Mind. Found in the National Portrait Gallery's "Catalog of American Portraits."