ECAI – CAA Conference, Fargo, April 19, 2006

Geo-temporal Indexing:Events, Lives, and Geographical

Features

Michael Bucklandalso Kim Carl, Sarah Ellinger

and Vincent Briggeman

University of California, Berkeley

ECAI Metadata Infrastructure

Any resource:Audio, Images, Texts, Numeric data, Objects, Virtual reality, Webpages

Any catalog: Archives, Libraries, Museums, TV, Publishers

Facet Vocabulary Displays

WHAT Thesaurus Cross-

e.g. LCSH references

WHERE Gazetteer Map

WHEN Period directory Timeline

WHO Biograph. dict. Personal e.g. Who’s Who relations

WHERE Gazetteer Map

Ctesiphon (Ancient site)

Dots link to portal

Page of links relating to Ctesiphon

Links to library catalogs

Z39.50 search of Library of Congress catalog

Details of recordLink to image

WHEN Time period directory Timeline

Prototype time period directory at ecai.org/imls2004

Sample entryGenerates catalog search

WHEN, WHERE and WHO. Search in LC catalog for

No standard form for personal names!

yields 65 records showing who was doing what:

WHO Biographical dict. Text & images

Lives involve events:

WHAT: Actions – Arab invasion

WHERE: Places - Ctesiphon

WHEN: Times – 632CE

WHO: People – Khosrau II

Need links to other sources also!

Biographical styles:

1. Emphasis on actions WHAT s/he did – Lives of saints.

2. Trajectories in TIME – careers.

3. “Life paths” – Movements, place to place. WHERE.

4. Personal relationships – Intellectual history, with WHOM.

Well rounded biography needs all four: WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHO [else].

Emanuel Goldberg, Born Moscow 1881. PhD under Wilhelm Ostwald, Univ. of Leipzig, 1906. Director, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1926-33. Moved to Palestine 1937. Died Tel Aviv, 1970.

Almost every word denotes what he did directly (born, moved, died) or implicitly (PhD, Director), where he did it: Moscow, Leipzig, Dresden, Palestine, …. when it happened (1881, etc.), or who else was involved (Wilhelm Ostwald, Univ. of Leipzig).

Lives could be treated as a series of events. Each event represented by a “tuple”: action (WHAT) in time (WHEN) in a place (WHERE) in relation to others (WHO). e.g. “Born 1881”, “Born in Moscow”, “Born in Moscow in 1881”, “Born to Grigorii and Olga Goldberg at 32 Miasnitzskaia, Moscow on August 19, 1881” are differently complete descriptions.

Any document, object, or performance.

Any resource:Audio, Images, Texts, Numeric data, Objects, Virtual reality, Webpages

Any catalog: Archives, Libraries, Museums, TV, Publishers

Markup with metadata connects it to its context – and all other resources.

Understanding means knowing context.

Facet Vocabulary Displays

WHAT Thesaurus Cross- e.g. LCSH references

WHERE Gazetteer Map

WHEN Period directory Timeline

WHO Biograph. dict. Personal e.g. Who’s Who relations

The Internet Public Library replicates the technology of the codex:- Hierarchical structure- Drill down for detail, climb back out, drill down again,...

But digital technology does not need to copy the hierarchical structure and constraints of codex technology . . .

Digital techniques can link directly and horizontally if there is:

-- Procedural interoperability (e.g. Z39:50) and

-- Vocabulary interoperability (e.g. Dewey’s Relativ Index to the Decimal Classification).

Suppose we designed directly to provide the functionality of a reference collection on those two assumptions.

Suppose that we started with the user’s need for know about WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHO.

Going places in the catalog! Linked to a gazetteer and map display.Geographic sort of books on Folklore.

Using a map and a gazetteer as a geographic search aid, e.g. lists capital cities (PPLC) in box around South America.

So a similar solution: A gazetteer-like Time Period Directory.

Gazetteer:

Place name – Type – Spatial markers (Lat & long) -- When

Time Period Directory

Period name – Type – Time markers (Calendar) – Where

Next, connect Geographic Types with library subject indexing – Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Relating Physical objects to Topics.

Relationship between place names & period names

National Geospatial Intell. Agency Geographic Description Codes: -- 600+ types of physical object, e.g. School, Plateau, Dike

Library of Congress Subject Headings: >100,000 topics and combinations to form complex topics

• Most GDC have comparable LCSH, ordinarily in plural.

• GDC School = LCSH School buildings. LCSH School means an institution.

• 38% LCSH same, usually plural; 61% match incl variant spellings & synonyms; 22% boader; 4% narrower; 12% problematic.

• GDC weak on historic features, e.g. Ancient site.

• Object / topic isssues: North Dakota – Antiquities.

Facet Vocabulary Displays Reference GenreWHAT Topics Cross-references Dictionary, EncyclopediaWHERE Places Maps Atlas, gazetteerWHEN Periods Timeline Almanac, ChronologyWHO Persons Personal relationships Biogr.dictionary, Whos Who

Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays FacetDictionary, encyclopedia Topics Cross-refs WHATAtlas, gazetteer Places Maps WHEREAlmanac, chronology Time Timelines WHENBiogr. Dict., Who’s Who Persons Personal relationships WHO

Paper-based reference collection: Codex determines structure and use.

Reversed in a digital environment: Metadata forms infrastructure.

The Electronic Cultural Atlas InitiativeAdvancing scholarship through increased

attention to place and time.http://ecai.org

Join us at our next ECAI conference!

We thank the US federal Institute for Museum and Library Services for grants to ECAI: Co-PIs Ray

Larson, Fredric Gey & Michael Buckland.

Understanding means knowing context.