THESAURI AND CONTROLLED VOCABULARY AT TE PAPA

Adrian KingstonCollection Information Manager - Digital Assets & DevelopmentMuseum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

+I am not a thesaurus expert

+Not a dynamic subject

+Covering a large subject area very quickly

+ Some developments are just ideas at this stage

+Attempt to comply with ISO 2788, Guidelines for Monolingual Thesauri (and Multilingual when appropriate)

DISCLAIMERS

+Object Classification- +Three level hierarchical classification derived from Chennel OR +Subject classification from unknown source

+Production Place- Three level hierarchy for places, though boundaries not always useful

+Few picklists, most overridden

+Very little control over “parties” creation

+2003 starting to standardise the lists in preparation of new system

+Taxonomy- Linnaean

PREVIOUS SYSTEM - TE KAHUI

+Considerable emphasis on vocabulary control

+Approx 75% of the Humanities catalogue vocabulary controlled

+Approx 80% of Natural Environment catalogue is vocabulary controlled

+Most Lookups are not editable, users can not modify thesaurus

EMu

+Object Classification: Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) Components, Furnishings and Equipment, Visual and Verbal Communications

+Materials: AAT Material Facet

+Technique: AAT Processes and Techniques facet

+Subject: Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I Subject Terms

+Period / Style: AAT Style and Periods Facet

+Concept / Activities: AAT Associated Concepts Facet

+Associated place, production place, birth/death place; Getty Thesaurus Geographic Names

 

THESAURI AT TE PAPA

+Iwi/Ethnic Group: Statistics NZ Standards for Ethnicity (Ethnic Group), Ministry of Culture and Heritage Iwi list (Iwi)

+Language: ISO 639 Codes for the representation of names of languages (selected)

+Production Role/Party Specialties: Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) roles list

LOOK-UP LISTS AT TE PAPA

Difficulties

+Big change

+How to find the correct term?

+Selecting and attaching multiples

+Language

+Issues with general cataloguing skills

+ Most hadn’t used a real thesaurus before, found the concepts confusing

Solutions

+List views for faster browsing of search results

+Shortcuts (airport codes for main cities etc) combined with also-search

+Training sessions

+EMuhelp provides constant advocacy and advice to users

+Minor tweaks to EMu functionality

USERS

PROS OF AAT

+In theory, can cater for any human-made object

+Helps with interoperabilty

+Authoritative , collaborative, respected, frequently recommended

+Covers art well, and most social history objects

+Good scope notes, references

+Getty did all the work!

 

CONS OF AAT

+Huge

+Complicated, not natural thought process for many people

+ Language (American English, aluminum)

+Users think it can be too specific

PROS OF TGN

+Covers the entire world!

+Interoperable

+Respected, recommended

+ They did all the work! 

CONS OF TGN

+Language (preferred to whom) Deutschland , Suomi, Zhonghua- Germany, Finland, China

+Te Papa is usually describing New Zealand or the Pacific, rest of the world can get in the way

+Ambiguity (Wellington)

PROS OF TGM I

+Covers huge range of subject matter

 

CONS OF TGM I

+Arranged alphabetically, harder to find terms.

+Keywords more than thesaurus

+Language (American English)

+Vernacular

+Not much in the way of scope notes

+Objects+Simplify, cut down (we don’t collect buildings)+Adjust language/spelling (watercolors)+Remain compatible with AAT (alternates)+Mäori, Pacific thesauri (separate from, but complimentary, to AAT)+Bulk changes of legacy data to new terms

+Materials +As above+NZ specific materials (kauri, rimu, pounamu)

+Period +Add historical periods specific to Matauranga Maori (traditional knowledge) and New Zealand colonisation

WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

+TGN

+Swap preferred term around, English preferred rather than vernacular preferred (China, rather than Zhonghua, Germany rather than Deutschland)

+Replace New Zealand with LINZ gazetteer? Gives:

+historical and archaeological (pa sites) sites, +latitude and longitude co-ordinates, +plus more accurate rivers, hills and other geographic and historic features

WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

Natural Environment

+In addition to Linnaean taxonomy, need non-scientific/general public friendly classifications, eg:

+Habitat (forest canopy, intertidal zone)+Predator, scavenger etc+Endangered, protected, extinct etc+Introduced, native etc+Good to eat, poisonous etc+Traditional uses, eg; feathers etc+Associations with Atua (gods)

WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

Previous changes:

+Searching within a facet (from the thesaurus)

+Display of full string from thesaurus hierarchy to give context

+Partly due to not being able to change from detail view to browse view+ Don’t have to open the broader term record, then its broader term, then its broader term, then…

+Searching non-usable terms from the catalogue

EMu FUNCTIONALITY

(Possible) Future changes

+IRN instead of word matching+Need to search on the actual term, not words+Currently need to bulk replaces if change a term in thesaurus

EMu FUNCTIONALITY

+ WebChoir TCS-10

+ How to make thesauri available for online use?

OUTSIDE OF EMu

+ Internal uses; collection management, conservation, research, etc

+Reliable searches for the public and researchers

+CIDOC CRM, Collections online. Consistent terminology core component of (automatically) building relationships between objects, people, places, and topics.

WHY

+Difficult

+Important

CONCLUSION