Overview of projects of conceptual model
development for archival description
Workshop on Conceptual modeling for Archives,
Libraries and Museums
Helsinki, Finland, January 28-29, 2010
Claire Sibille, Archives of France, secretary of the ICA committee
on Best Practices and Standards
This talk will cover:
Basic rules and standards for archival description
Projects for an archival conceptual model
ICA/Committee on Best Practices and Standards
An example of ICA standards implementation (and of their
relationships) : ICA-AtoM software
NEDA project (Spain)
Series system and recordkeeping metadata project (Australia)
Elements of discussion
Archives
“Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization,
public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved
because of the enduring value contained in the information they
contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their
creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles
of provenance, original order, and collective control.”
(Society of American Archivists, A Glossary of Archival and Records
Terminology)
Provenance
“Provenance is a fundamental principle of archives,
referring to the individual, family, or organization that
created or received the items in a collection. The principle
of provenance or the respect des fonds dictates that
records of different origins (provenance) be kept separate
to preserve their context.”
(Society of American Archivists, A Glossary of Archival and
Records Terminology)
Original order
Order in which it was maintained when it was last used by
its creator(s)
The principle of original order, therefore, dictates that,
wherever possible, this order must be retained when an
archive is arranged
In some cases however, it is accepted that the original
order of an archive may not be discernible and, in such
cases, the archivist is free to impose a sensible order of
his/her own
Hierarchical model of the levels of
arrangement for a fonds
Fonds
Sub-fonds
Series
Sub-series
Sub-fonds
Series
Sub-series
File
Item
Item
Series
File
Item
Multilevel Description
Archival arrangement is reflected in the description of
archives through the use of multilevel description
Describe from the general to the specific
The information provided should be relevant to the level of
description
Descriptions should be linked
Information should not be repeated
Contextual description
Provenance is the primary locus of archival intellectual
control and description
Describing archives means providing information about
their creators and about the historical context of their
creation
Sometimes, the relationships of records with the functions
that generated them are more important than the
relationships of the records with the organizations that
created them
ICA standards
ISAD(G) (1994, 1999) => archival materials
ISAAR(CPF) (1996, 2004) => entities (corporate bodies,
persons and families) associated with the creation and
maintenance of archives
ISDF (2008) => functions of entities associated with the creation
and maintenance of archival materials
ISDIAH (2008) => institutions with archival holdings (archival
institutions, museums, libraries, etc.)
Encoding standards
EAD = Encoded Archival Description (DTD,1998, 2002;
XML schema [non finalized], 2007) => archival materials
EAC-CPF = Encoded Archival Context (XML schema, 2010)
=> corporate bodies, persons, families
EAC-F = Encoded Archival Context - Functions (project) =>
functions of entities associated with the creation and maintenance
of archival materials
EAG = Encoded Archival Guide => institutions with archival
holdings (archival institutions, museums, libraries, etc.)
Problems with ICA standards
Provide standardized sets of elements for describing
archival materials, their repositories, their creators, and
functions of the creators
Modeling is the next phase, the one in which entities are
identified as well as their attributes and we can form the
network of relationships among data elements
For instance, ISAAR(CPF) and ISDIAH entities share numerous
attributes; an entity which is an institution with archival holdings is
also going to be an entity which creates and maintains records
Problems with EAD
EAD is document centric standard, not a data-centric
standard
Archival description is hierarchical, but we need to be able
to form complete and flexible system of archival
description that would interrelate record description,
creator description and the description of functions and
activities
reveal relationships within a single fonds that a hierarchical
representation alone does not reveal
EAC-CPF
EAC-CPF is more data-centric: it defines a set of elements
used to describe agent entities and the structure of
interrelationships amongst those elements
EAC-CPF has been created to accommodate a variety of
identities
Several projects aim to develop, implement and test the
integration of EAC-CPF in existing international archival
description and name authority systems
ICA work in progress
The Committee on Best Practices and Standards (CBPS)
develops a single reference model for descriptive
standards, enabling archivists
to describe different types of entities
to document these entities in relationship to each other at
particular points of time, or over time
Using the ICA’s descriptive standards, it is now possible to
develop a three-entity model for archival description
Entities / Relationships Model
Functions
are documented in
/ document
are done by / do
Agents (CPF)
are created and
used by
create and use
Archival materials
Linking ICA standards
ICA-AtoM
Acronym for 'Access to Memory’; an example of
implementation of ICA standards (their relationships)
Web-based, open-source, multi-lingual archival description
software
Enables institutions to make their archival holdings
available online, especially those who could not otherwise
afford to do so
Supports multi-repository collections
ICA-AtoM architecture includes a number of entity types
ICA-AtoM: entities and their relationships
Spain, NEDA project
NEDA = Normas Españolas de Descripción archivística
(Spanish standards for archival description)
Commission appointed by the Ministry of Culture to
develop a conceptual model for archival description and
requirements of basic data for describing archival
materials and functions
Part 1 was published in 2009 (identifying types of entities)
http://en.www.mcu.es/archivos/MC/CNEDA/Documentos.html
NEDA: entities and their relationships
Agents
create and
manage / are
created and
managed by
have for subject /
are subjects of
Subjects
do / are done by
Functions
Mandates
govern / are governed by
Archival materials
document / are
documented in
have for subject /
are subjects of
Places
NEDA: types and subtypes of entities
Agent
Person
Family
Corporate body
create and
manage / are
created and
managed by
have for subject /
are subjects of
Subjects
do / are done by
Functions
Mandates
govern / are governed by
Archival materials
Recordgroup
Series
File ...
Sub-functions
Activities/Processes
Transactions
document / are
documented in
have for subject /
are subjects of
Places
The Australian Series System
Used to describe both 'current' and 'historical' records
A more dynamic approach to the intellectual control of records
Accommodates documentation of multiple provenance
The series is the highest level of archival description
Creation of separate but linked descriptions of records, records
creators and their functions and activities
The series system does not require fonds-level descriptive inputs,
but it is capable of generating fonds-level descriptive outputs
whenever such outputs are needed
Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Elements of discussion
A few standards and related formats but only modeling
projects
Archivists are interested in modeling for providing
interoperability in collaborative projects
For instance, the APEnet portal will enable archival resources to be
harvested by the EUROPEANA
Elements of discussion
Methodology:
to start from conceptual models developed for ICA-AtoM or in
Spain and in Australia and from the EAD mapping to CIDOC-CRM
with a constant reference to ICA standards
or to develop a conceptual model from ICA standards on the basis
of the other modeling projects
Elements of discussion
Methodology: one archival entity with 3 sub-types (for
archival materials, agents and functions)
develop a common entity-type (super-type) based on attributes
common to ISAD, ISAAR/ISDIAH and ISDF which might never be
used to document anything but which would confer attributes on
the sub-types (for instance, existence date)
bring the 3 sub-types into alignment with the super-type and with
each other
the sub-entities could be used to confer attributes on sub-subentities
Elements of discussion
Methodology:
identify classes/subclasses and properties for archives
for instance, the archival entity Function could be broken down
into multiple classes, each with specific properties, and the class
E7 Activity could be enriched from ISDF
see whether targets of the properties are appropriate for archives
Elements of discussion
Work plan
periodicity of meetings
funding
participants (required competencies for developing a conceptual
model)
relationships with ICA work (a meeting is planned at the end of
May at Paris) and with EAD evolutions