Why standards?
Standards for improving documentation: Data Standards
What are the benefits of standards?

Why standards?
Assume you are a writing a paper to present at a conference in another city. Before leaving for the airport, you copy your paper to a 3 1/2 inch diskette, knowing that when you get there you'll want to add some last minute thoughts. An hour before your talk, you borrow a friend's laptop computer and insert the disk. Wouldn't you be surprised (and upset!) if your disk didn't fit into the slot of your friend's computer? Fortunately, the computer industry developed and adopted a standard for a uniform size disk.

This example illustrates how standards are used to control outcomes, so that you can be sure to get what you expect -- every 3 1/2 diskette fits into every computer all the time. Standards are useful in all fields and, in today's highly technical culture, essential for the smooth operation of systems that govern our daily lives.

• STANDARDS are mutually agreed upon statements that help to control an action or product. They may be created to establish consistency within an organization, a group of organizations, a country, or the global community.
• STANDARDS represent professional consensus on best practice. The process that produces standards typically brings together knowledgeable practitioners to codify a reasonable body of practice based on a wide range of experiences.

Standards for improving documentation: Data Standards

The term "standards" can sometimes be intimidating because there is a perception that they are inflexible. Actually, standards encompasses a broad range of choices, from highly technical exacting standards, to recommended guidelines for practice. There is a special category of standards designed to improve the documentation and retrieval of information --- data standards. You will find that many of the "standards" for art and material culture information are actually guidelines or guideposts that begin to define and identify the critical elements neccessary to improve access. Fortunately, standards come in a variety of sizes and shapes specifically built to serve special purposes and communities.

There are four types of data standards, as described below. When used together, they are designed to improve access to your information.

1. Data Structure Standards define the categories into which information is to be divided. They establish what data elements will be included in a database record. For example, there might be a category for the artist's name and a category for the date the work was created. Some data structure standards serve as guidelines, like the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) and the Core Categories for Visual Resources, version 2.0. Others, like the MARC format and the Encoded Archival Description (EAD), function as both data structure and data communication standards.

An outline of the CDWA structure may be viewed on the Getty Research Institute Website.

2. Data Communication Standards facilitate the interchange of information by specifying both a data structure and the way in which the individual data values are coded, or labeled within that structure. The MARC Format and the EAD are both communication standards that have these qualities. For example, the MARC format specifies that a field designated 650 be used for data on the subject matter of an item. The data that is entered there is coded according to a carefully defined protocol. The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress in partnership with the Society of American Archivists.

3. Data Content Standards are guidelines that govern the order, syntax, and form in which the data values are entered into the structure categories. For example, you need rules to tell you whether to input "Picasso, Pablo" or "Pablo Picasso" in the artist name field. Guidelines help decide whether to use "19th c." or "1801 - 1899" in the date field. AACR2 is a data content standard used by many organizations as a guide for data entry.

Here are two examples of published standards used to govern data content.

Sample page from the "Headings for Persons" section of Anglo American Cataloging Rules, second edition 1988 revison (AACR2), p. 387:

Below is a sample page from the "Headings for Corporate Bodies" section in Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts, p. 88–89:

4. Data Value Standards govern the terms or words that will be input into the categories established by the data structure. Controlled vocabularies and authority files regularize and standardize the terminology so that similar items can be retrieved in a search. For example, a personal name authority file will indicate which name among a number of variants (Paul Smith, Paul J. Smith, Paul Joseph Smith, etc.) should be used to refer to a certain individual. A structured subject vocabulary will link synonyms such as "tall buildings" and "skyscraper" in a database so that searchers get better results.

How do data standards work together? The data structure is the container into which the data values (the terms) are placed according to the data content (the rules). Using these tools, combined with the powerful information exchange capabilities of data communication standards, results in improved documentation and access to cultural heritage information.

What are the benefits of standards?

• Standards Improve the Quality and Consistency of Information.
  Because standards have been developed as a result of mutual agreement, they reflect well reasoned and informed decisions, arrived at by consensus. Adopting standards at a local level takes advantage of this body of knowledge and experience, therefore improving the quality and consistency of information.
• Standards Improve Compatibility of Information Structures.
  Using standard data structures and vocabularies will ensure that your data is compatible with other databases in the field. In the future, it may not be necessary for every database to use the exact same data structure or vocabulary, because researchers are experimenting with creating "crosswalks" among different standards. For example, the field "artist name" in one data structure would be linked to a field called "artist" in another one, thus creating a crosswalk between the two structures. The activity of creating a crosswalk is specified as "mapping." The desired outcome is called interoperability. It emphasizes access and practicality, yet preserves unique points of view as represented by different data standards.
• Standards Protect the Long-term Value of Your Data.
  Standards for documentation have been in existence long before the advent of the computer and the Web. The fact that you may have been using a standard format or vocabulary in your index card files will ensure that your data, which is precious intellectual property, is preserved for future applications. For example, the use of standards can facilitate retrospective cataloging projects by providing a common base from which to migrate from.
• Standards Facilitate Information Retrieval
  Standards enable and foster the interchange of information. For example, the ability to provide remote access to library records using off-the-shelf software would not be possible without the adoption of the MARC format as the accepted data standard.

Read more about standards for cultural heritage information in the Readings section.