This compendium includes tools, guides, manuals, organizations, projects, and training opportunities both on the Web and in print. It aims to be a useful, yet hardly exhaustive, list of items relating to vocabularies.

While the emphasis is on vocabularies, also you will find selected resources for documentation, cataloging, standards, and metadata. There are numerous sites and web guides that offer comprehensive coverage in these areas, and I have chosen a few sites that will lead you to the more specific resources.

This Tools section is designed as a companion to the Readings section of this site. There you will find additional readings to accompany the subject matter covered in the Tutorial.

NOTE: For web sites/pages, the date in parenthesis indicates "date last modified."

Vocabularies

Guides
Selected Vocabularies
Classifications
Vocabulary Building
Projects and Initiatives

Documentation, Cataloging, and Description

Selected Standards and Metadata Tools

Data content/syntax
Structures and Formats

Helpful Organizations

Training Opportunities

VOCABULARIES

Guides

"Bibliography of Controlled Vocabulary Sources"
in Visual Resources, Special Issue, XI, no. 3-4 (1996): 423-429.
This list was compiled by the Art Information Task Force in conjunction with the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA).

Controlled Vocabularies
Michael Middleton. Queensland University of Technology  (25 March 1998)
This site provides links to examples of thesauri and classification schemes that may be used as metainformation for controlling databases or web page subject content.

Data Content Standards:  A Directory.
Kerridwen Harvey and Patricia Young. Ottawa: Canadian Heritage Information Network, 1994.
Lists standards, organizations and projects in English and French. Includes terminologies, dictionaries and other sources. For information see:

Directory of Thesauri for Object Names/Inventaire des Thesauri ou Vocabularies controlés des objects
ICOM-CIDOC, 1994.
An international guide based on a survey conducted by the Terminology Control Working Group of CIDOC.

Thesauri Database
European Commission's Directorate General for Information Technologies and Industries, and Telecommunications (DG XIII).
The Thesauri database is an inventory of structured vocabularies that have appeared in at least one of the official languages of the European Communities. It contains over 600 descriptions of thesauri from EU Member States, United States and Canada.

Web Thesaurus Compendium
Barbara Lutes. German National Research Center for Information Technology, Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (GMD-IPSI). (27 April 1998)
A compilation of thesauri on the Web, including general thesauri and classifications and thesauri in specific domains or for special purposes.
 
wordHOARD
Museum Documentation Association.  (21 April 1998)
A guide to terminology resources relevant to museums and other cultural heritage collections, including on-line thesauri, classification systems, and other authority files.  An excellent site for keeping abreast of terminology efforts in the UK and Europe.

Selected Vocabularies

Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)
Getty Research Institute.
With the AAT web browser you can search all the terms in the AAT, browse through the hierarchies, view detailed information about terms, and search the scope notes.
 

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names  (TGN)
Getty Research Institute. 
Contains approximately 900,000 records for places, arranged in hierarchies representing all nations of the modern world and historical places, and including vernacular and historical names, coordinates, place types, and other relevant information.

Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)
Getty Research Institute.
The ULAN web browser allows you to search for artists by name or by biographical information, including artist's role (sculptor, photographer, architect); place of birth, activity, or death; and life dates.

Library of Congress Catalogs, Name and Subject Authority Files
(12 May 1998)
NAF, the international Name Authority File maintained by the Library of Congress, includes name authority records and series authority records created by LC and other libraries for use in cataloging. It contains ca. 4.1 million records. The SAF, Subject Authority Files (ca. 240,000 records) include those established by the Library of Congress for use in cataloging. To search these files on the Web, select the "Advanced Search" option in the "Word Search" section. A search form will appear allowing you to choose the specific file you wish to search.

Library of Congress Subject Headings. 21st edition
Washington, DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1998.
A standard subject heading list used by libraries and indexes. Provides an alphabetical list of subject headings, cross-references and subdivisions in verified status in the LC subject authority file.

Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I, Subject Terms (TGM 1)
Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division.   (16 June 1998)
Includes 6,065 terms and cross references for the subject indexing of visual materials. Terms may be searched directly or browsed in alphabetical order. Companion volume to TGM II.

Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II, Genre and Physical Characteristics Terms (TGM II)
Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division.  (8 April 1998)
TGM II is the 2nd edition of "Descriptive Terms for Graphic Materials: Genre and Physical Characteristic Headings" (1986). The thesaurus of 600 terms was developed by the LC Prints and Photographs Division, with input from other archival image repositories. The new name reflects its role as a companion to TGM I.

British Museum Materials Thesaurus
British Museum, Collections Data Management Working Party. (1997)
This thesaurus was initially compiled from index terms used in curatorial documentation of the objects themselves. In creating the thesaurus, the terms were vetted, incorporated into a hierarchical structure, and other thesaural features added. It is not intended as a scientific classification system, rather it is a reflection of the terminology, both current and historical, in use in curatorial departments in The British Museum. Terms may be proposed to the Working Party and if suitable, added to the thesaurus.

Collection Thesaurus
Judy Coombes.  Sydney: Powerhouse Museum, 1995.
The thesaurus used for documenting the collections of the Powerhouse Museum (Australia). Coverage includes social history, decorative arts, and science and technology.  In addition to the currently available volumes - "Objects hierarchical" and "Objects alphabetical", plans call for a subject thesaurus and a name authority file. Users are encouraged to submit candidate terms to the Powerhouse Museum.
 
Geographic Names Information System.
U.S. Geographic Survey.  (27 May  1998)
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), developed by the United States Geographic Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. The Federally recognized name of each feature described in the data base is identified, and references are made to a feature's location by State, county, and geographic coordinates.

GEOnet Names Server
National Imagery and Mapping Agency. (12 May 1998)
Provides access to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) database of foreign geographic feature names. Approximately 12,000 of the database's 3.3 million features are updated monthly with names information approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

MDA Archaeological Objects Thesaurus
Museum Documentation Association, English Heritage & Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. (1997)
This thesaurus is the result of work undertaken by the MDA Archaeological Objects Thesaurus Working Party, begun in 1995. The scope of the thesaurus is "any physical evidence, usually portable, resulting from past human activity and human interaction with the environment, or environmental remains, that can be recovered through archaeological fieldwork".

Multilingual Egyptological Thesaurus.
Dirk van der Plas, in collaboration with the Computer Working Group of the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE) and the Comité International pour l'Égyptologie (CIPEG) of the International Counsil of Museums (ICOM) (1996)
A vocabulary intended for documentation and retrieval of museum objects, the thesaurus includes terms in French, English, and German.

Vocabulary of Basic Terms for Cataloguing Costume
ICOM International Committee for the Museums and Collections of Costume. (February 1998)
A multilingual list in French, English, and German.

Classifications

Revised Nomenclature For Museum Cataloging : A Revised And Expanded Version Of Robert G. Chenall's System For Classifying Man-Made Objects.  James R. Blackaby. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1995.
Nomenclature is a hierarchical system for the classifying and naming of artifacts. The classification reflects the functionality of objects, as opposed to the form or origin.

Dewey Decimal Classification
OCLC Forest Press. (1 July 1998)
The Dewey Decimal Classification system (DDC) is a general knowledge
organization tool that was conceived by Melvil Dewey and first published in 1876. DDC is the most widely used library classification system in the world and has been translated into over 30 languages. In addition, Dewey is used for other purposes, e.g., as  a browsing mechanism for resources on the World Wide Web.

ICONCLASS
ICONCLASS Research & Development Group (IRDG) at the Universities of Utrecht and Leiden.  (30 June 1998)
ICONCLASS is intended for those engaged in iconographical research or in the documentation of images. ICONCLASS is an iconographic classification system, i.e., a collection of 24,000 definitions of objects, persons, events, situations and abstract ideas, that can be the subject of a work of art. Each concept in ICONCLASS is represented by an alpha-numeric notation with numerous cross-references between thematically or visually related concepts.

Library of Congress Classification
Library of Congress. Cataloging Policy and Support Office.   (11 June 1997)
A standard used by libraries to classify and physically arrange their collections by subject.

Social History and Industrial Classification (SHIC)
SHIC Working Party.  (1997)
SHIC is a system for museum cataloging that classifies objects, photographs, archival material, tape recordings, information files by area of human activity. 

Vocabulary Building

ISO 2788-1986 Guidelines for the Establishment and Development of monolingual thesauri.
International Organization for Standardization. Geneva: ISO, 1986.

ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993 Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri.
National Information Standards Organization.  Bethesda: NISO Press, 1994.

ISO 5964-1985. Guidelines for the Establishment and Development of Multilingual Thesauri.
International Organization for Standardization.  Geneva: ISO, 1985.

Guidelines for Forming Language Equivalents: A model based on the Art & Architecture Thesaurus
International Terminology Working Group. For more information, contact Patricia Young of the Canadian Heritage Information Network.

Eurodicautom
European Commission.  (1997)
This ten language multilingual dictionary covers the terminology of all the activities of the European Union. Although not specifically geared to cultural heritage, this application shows how multilingual vocabulary construction issues, such as partial equivalencies, can be handled.

Thesaurus construction and use: a practical manual
Jean Aitchison, David Bawden and Alan Gilchrist. (3rd Ed), London: Aslib, 1997
"This third edition has been updated to take account of the advances in information technology, and now also includes the uses of thesauri. In this edition, the US ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Thesaurus construction standard is also covered."

Publications on Thesaurus Construction and Use.
Leonard Will, Willpower Information. (16 September 1997)
An excellent bibliography of print and web publications, compiled by an acknowledged expert on the subject.

Thesaurus Principles and Practice.
Leonard Will, Willpower Information. (13 February 1998)
Will presents a clear and concise introduction to the subject.

Projects and initiatives

American Memory:  Historical Collections for the National Digital Library.
Library of Congress. (7 July 1998)
A pilot project for the National Digital Library, American Memory provides access to digitized historical collections (photographs, prints, documents, motion picture, maps, and sound recordings). The Background Papers discuss the various access components in the project, including SGML, EAD, MARC format, Library of Congress vocabularies, the INQUERY retrieval engine, among others.

Aquarelle:  The Information Network on Cultural Heritage.
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics. (19 February 1997)
An International consortium of public and private cultural organizations supported by the European Commission, Telematics Applications Programme for the purpose of sharing cultural information. A key component of this project is the development and deployment of multilingual terminology resources to support querying to databases offering documentation in different languages. A study has been carried out to assess current practices and expectations regarding the production of these resources.
 
Dutch Ethnographic Thesaurus.
Eight Dutch ethnographic museums have set up a project to develop a common thesaurus. The thesaurus will be in Dutch and will be developed inductively on the basis of the existing collections of the participating museums. As far as possible, the thesaurus will follow the structure and hierarchies of the AAT or of internationally accepted agreements on terminology.

Lexical FreeNet.
Beeferman, Doug.  Carnegie Mellon University (6 March 1998)
This demonstration illustrates how a semantic network is built by computing the relationship between two user supplied words (source and target concepts). The choice of relationships includes:  sounds like, shortest conceptual path between two terms, synonyms, whole/part, and antonyms, among others.

STARCH - Structured Terminology for Archives.  
Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester.
This research project is constructing a pilot annotation and cataloguing workbench for art archivists, driven by a structured terminological model of subject content and managed by description logic.

Term-IT.
Coordinated by the Museum Documentation Association (18 June 1998)
This European project is funded by the Language Engineering sector of theTelematics Applications Programme.  Term-IT provides multilingual support for multimedia services by studying the production of mono and multilingual terminology resources and exploring ways of facilitating the editing and dissemination of multilingual thesauri.

WordNet
Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University.
"A lexical database for English, WordNet® is an on-line lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets."

DOCUMENTATION, CATALOGING, AND DESCRIPTION

Cataloger's Toolbox.
Charley Pennell and Suzanne Ellison. Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
(6 July 1998)
An extensive compilation of links to bibliographic and archival cataloging tools, including visual materials.

CHIN Professional Resources.
Canadian Heritage Information Network/Réseau canadien d’information sur le patrimoine. (1998)
Includes publications, tools, links, and databases for documentation and other museum professional practice.

Image and Multimedia Database Resources.
Howard Besser. (18 November 1997)
Links to resources and tools for image documentation.

Internet Library for Librarians.
Vianne Tang Sha.  (7 June 1998)
An extensive guide with links to cataloging tools on the Web.

Introduction to Archival Arrangement and Description:  Access to Cultural Heritage.
Michael J. Fox and Peter Wilkerson, edited by Susanne Warren (July 1998)
Includes a complete listing of tools for archival description and arrangement on the web and in print.

Museum Documentation Association Online.
(July 1998)
One of the best sources for information on museum documentation, including publications, webtools, online fact sheets, and documentation demonstration projects. Updated frequently.

Museums and the Web conference proceedings
David Bearman and Jennifer Trant, eds.  Archives and Museum Informatics. (20 August 1997)
Proceedings of the 1997 and 1998 annual conferences. Papers address challenges facing both the cultural heritage community and technology as the missions of museums intersect with the opportunities of the Internet. Includes papers on collection management, documentation, and standards in the context of managing and integrating Web technology.

Recent Museum Documentation Initiatives.
ICOM International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC).
(14 February 1998)
News about and links to emerging standards, demonstration databases, and vocabulary applications in museums. Updated frequently.

Visual Arts Data Service (VADS)
(25 June 1998)
"VADS will provide UK Higher Education with access to digital research data appropriate for re-use, by building an on-line archive of electronic resources created by and of use to the visual arts community. These resources will adhere to agreed standards of best practice for the creation, management, preservation and access of electronic information. The appropriate standards will be selected and developed, by consultation with relevant academic and expert advisory bodies, and will feed into the Arts & Humanities Data Service Standards Reference Guidelines and Guides to Good Practice."

3.  SELECTED STANDARDS AND METADATA TOOLS

Data content/syntax

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition.
1988 Revisions & 1993 Amendments. Electronic Version 1.0/CD-ROM Format. Chicago: American Library Association. 1988, 1993.

Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: A Cataloging Manual for Archival Repositories, Historical Societies, and Manuscript Libraries.
Steven Hensen. 2nd. ed. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1990.

Graphic Materials: Rules for Describing Original Items and Historic Collections.
Elizabeth W. Betz, comp. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1982.

Rules for Archival Description (RAD).
Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1990.

Structures and Formats

Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA).
Getty Research Institute. (12 February 1998)
The Categories, which articulate an intellectual structure for the content of object and image descriptions, were developed by the Art Information Task Force (AITF), an initiative sponsored by the J. Paul Getty Trust and the College Art Association (CAA).

Core Categories for Visual Resources, Version 3.0.
Visual Resources Association, Data Standards Committee.  (October 1997)
The VRA Core is intended as a guideline for describing visual documents depicting works of art, architecture, and artifacts or structures from material, popular, and folk culture. While they are not specific instructions for system building or record structures, they may be used as a template for the foundation of such applications in both local or shared environments.  The VRA Core is the basis for the VISION test bed project.

Dublin Core and the Cataloging Rules: Analysis Project.
John Attig.  ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access Task Force on Metadata and the Cataloging Rules. (3 April 1998)
This site serves as the focus for an investigation and evaluation of "the proposed Dublin Metadata Core Element Set and evaluate its use as a source of information for cataloging." Among other things it includes a self guided exercise using the Dublin Core data elements and a collection of sample Dublin Core records.

Dublin Core/MARC/GILS Crosswalk.
Network Development and MARC Standards Office. (7 April 1997)
A good illustration of how the mapping of three data structure standards results in a crosswalk.

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set: Reference Description.
Stuart Weibel and Eric Miller.  (2 November 1997)
A concise description of the15 Dublin Core elements along with any qualifiers.

Encoded Archival Description (EAD).
Library of Congress. (30 October 1997)
The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids using the 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.

Humanities Data Dictionary of the Canadian Heritage Information Network. Canadian Heritage Information Network, Museum Services, Documentation Research Group. Revision 3. Ottawa: Communications Canada, 1993.

International Guidelines for Museum Object Information:  The CIDOC Information Categories.
International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). (October 1995)
A set of information categories that can be used when developing records about the objects in museum collections.

Judy and Magda's List of Metadata Initiatives.
Judy Ahronheim. (11 February 1997)
Links to the major emerging metadata standards.

MARC Standards.
Library of Congress. (7 July 1998)
A complete source for the MARC formats and information about MARC. The MARC formats are standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form.

Metadata:  Mapping between Metadata Formats.
Michael Day. (12 December 1997)
A list of crosswalks available on the web.

Metadata Standards Crosswalk.
This chart is maintained by the Standards Program, Getty Research Institute. It maps the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) to several other data standards that are important for art and material culture, including Object ID, the CIMI Schema, the categories from the FDA Guide to the Description of Architectural Drawings, VRA Core Categories, USMARC, and Dublin Core.

Object ID:  Protecting Cultural Objects in the Global Information Society
J. Paul Getty Trust (18 February 1998)
In 1993, the J. Paul Getty Trust initiated an international collaborative project to establish consensus on a minimum standard for the identification and protection of cultural objects. Consultations and worldwide surveys of over 1,000 organizations in 84 countries have produced "Object ID," a set of essential categories required to identify an object.

SPECTRUM: The UK Museum Documentation Standard.
2nd edition. Cambridge, UK:  Museum Documentation Association, 1997.
SPECTRUM contains procedures for documenting objects and the processes they undergo, as well as identifying and describing the information which needs to be recorded to support the procedures.

Z39.50 Maintenance Agency .
Library of Congress. (6 July 1998)
ANSI/NISO Z39.50-1995 is a standard for use in searching and retrieving information over a computer network. Z39.50 enables uniform access to a large number of diverse and heterogeneous resources. When using a Z39.50 client one can provide users with a common interface for both the query and the search results, regardless of where the information came from.

4.  HELPFUL ORGANIZATIONS

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

American Association of Museums Professional Education Programs 1998.
(5 June 1998)
Continuing education courses for practitioners.

Association for Library and Information Science Education Institutional Members.
(9 April 1997)
A list of graduate library schools whose first professional degree programs have been approved by the American Library Association's Committee on Accreditation A listing of professional programs.
 
Cultural Resource Management Program at the University of Victoria.
(9 May 1998)
Provides professional development resources for people involved with museums, galleries, heritage agencies, and other cultural organizations throughout Canada and beyond. Some curriculum is available via distance learning courses.

ICOM/ICTOP International Committee for Training of Personnel.
(1996)
The mission of ICTOP is to encourage and promote relevant training to appropriate standards for all people working in museums, throughout their careers, including students on museum related pre-entry training programs.

New Visions: Tools for Change in Museums.
Washington, DC:  American Association of Museums, 1998.
A publication and workshop that provides staff and boards with the framework and tools to help institutions implement change.
more information

Organizations that Offer Museum Studies Courses.
Museum Employment Research Center.  (11 February 1998)
An international list.
 
Society of American Archivists Education.
(25 June 1998)
Includes information about archival education, including continuing education, in the United States and Canada.

Visual Resources Fundamentals.
Christine Sundt. (25 June 1996)
Home page for a course taught at the University of Oregon.