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Introduction
The need for guidelines of the kind articulated here has grown as
a result of increased interest in architectural drawings and the
information that can be derived from them. In particular, computers
have opened up a wider range of possibilities for inquiry than even
the most sophisticated of manual cataloguing systems could offer.
These possibilities bring with them, however, the challenge of
devising new approaches to the recording, structuring, and retrieval
of information.
These issues become even more important when cataloguing
institutions wish to share information. Common access requires a
common approach to structuring and recording information. This goal
can be attained in a variety of ways, ranging from applying strict
standards to more flexible approaches that make allowances for the
needs of individual institutions and the constraints under which they
operate. This range can be characterized broadly as: [1]
Technical standards: The most rigid and exacting level of
standards. If followed consistently, they will yield identical
products.
Conventions: Also called rules; these standards are more
flexible and can be adapted to local needs. The results will be
similar, but not identical.
Guidelines: Broad criteria against which to measure
products.
ADAG's deliberations have, for the most part, led to the
formulation of guidelines, rather than conventions or technical
standards. In some areas—for example, in the treatment of names
of people and corporate bodies—other organizations have
developed conventions that may be applicable to architectural
drawings. Given the dearth of standards for the description and
retrieval of drawings and built works, ADAG concentrated its efforts
on providing guidelines, and sometimes conventions, in these
relatively neglected areas. The Guide, then, is not
definitive, but is meant to be a step toward cataloguing standards.
Although principally concerned with architectural drawings, many of
these guidelines may be applied to—and at times specifically
address—related materials, including models, prints, and
photographs.
Documentation of holdings in archives or museums involves many
activities: accessioning, legal documentation, cataloguing, movement
control, and more. The Guide focuses on the activity of
cataloguing, defined as the creation of descriptions and indexes for
a repository's holdings.
Printed or card catalogue entries are likely to take the form of
phrases and sentences, conveying meaning in the form of discursive
prose. Descriptive information of this kind is relatively free of
syntax and terminology controls, apart from those imposed by the
conventions of language. It can express information necessary to the
description of an item and the context in which it was made,
including contradictory evidence and uncertainty. Descriptive
information is necessary because it communicates information to users
of a catalogue, but its value is very much dependent upon users first
finding the entries they need. Of course, all descriptive information
in a catalogue is accessible, in theory, if only by browsing through
all entries. However, this is time-consuming. In addition, if entries
are stored inside a computer, they are essentially hidden until they
are retrieved. In other words, retrieval is a necessary first
step before an entry is made accessible. The Guide focuses on
identifying the information that should be recorded (description) and
discusses the problems related to making it as retrievable as
possible (indexing).
Various approaches have evolved to address retrieval requirements
for both manual and computerized catalogues. For example, information
in a traditional manual catalogue is made more accessible by
structuring entries so that the same information appears in the same
physical area on the card, as in a catalogue card's uniform format.
Ensuring that categories such as title, name of draftsman, and
subject appear in the same relative position in each entry improves
access to the information by allowing for quicker browsing.
Similarly, in automated systems, retrieval is facilitated by storing
categories of information in predetermined reserved parts of records,
known as fields.
Another approach to making information more accessible is through
indexing of predetermined types of descriptive information.
Indexing can be defined as the making of multiple means of access to
catalogue information. For example, by indexing titles, names of
draftsmen, dates, and subjects, one can retrieve entries by these
categories. Mechanisms for creating such cross-references include
index cards or lists in a manual system and links or pathways in a
computer system. The categories of information used for retrieval can
be described as access points.[2]
Regardless of the mechanisms, these pathways or access points should
be planned early in the process of defining a repository's standards
for cataloguing.
Any cataloguing procedure must allow both for the listing of terms
in designated fields and for nuanced descriptions capable of
representing the subtle changes in spatial and other relationships so
key to the development of architectural concepts. The following
example is an excerpt from a description of a drawing where the
relationships, not the elements per se, are the subject:
Elevation of left half of façade of San Lorenzo from
ground level to peak of pediment. The elevation is divided
horizontally ... in three levels, a main order, a mezzanine of two
levels (the lower one several times the height of the upper), and an
upper level. The lower and upper levels are shown with what appears
to be the Corinthian order, and the mezzanine with pilaster strips
that include bases and cornices but no capitals...[3]
Compare this description with a possible list of access points
(index terms) for the same drawing:
- Italia
elevations
churches
façades
pediments
Corinthian order
pilaster strips
bases
cornices
The effect of the two texts is strikingly different. The
description not only helps to conjure an image of the subject, but is
also a valuable interpretive exercise in its own right. In contrast,
the characteristics captured by indexing are so generic that no image
comes to mind, and subjective interpretation is held to a minimum.
This example demonstrates the function of indexing: to lead the
researcher to entries of descriptive information—in this
example, the description of a subject (San Lorenzo) and how its
architectural components are related to one another in a particular
drawing. Descriptive information can convey not only such
relationships but also the absence or presence of a combination of
architectural components that a researcher may be looking for. It can
also express uncertainty about the accuracy of particular information
through qualifying language.
Thus description and indexing are complementary components of cataloguing.
The vagaries of language give indexed information higher
potential for retrieval than descriptive information, while
descriptive information is better suited than indexed information
to the expression of architectural syntax, nuance, and arguments.
The categories recommended in the Guide address this
need for both descriptive and index functions. (See Outline
of the Categories of Information for an explanation
of how these concepts are distinguished in the presentation
of categories.)
The complexities of expressing nuanced information raise the issue
of retrieving directly from images representing the items by such
means as videodiscs and CD-ROM. Researchers would welcome the
creation of illustrated databases that would enable them to browse
entire collections with relative ease. But if surrogate images are to
be made easily accessible, they need to be linked to a catalogue that
identifies and describes them by means of text—in the same way
that a catalogue makes the items represented accessible. Therefore,
the Guide assumes that the fundamental means of access to
images will remain text-based.
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