Name

Archive Driven Biographical Dictionary

Owner

Owen Stephens [owen@ostephens.com]

Jane Stevenson [jane.stevenson@manchester.ac.uk]

Linked Open Data Source

UK Archives either directly or via the ArchivesHub (http://archiveshub.ac.uk/)

Background

When describing their collections Archives create 'Finding Aids' These describe the collection in detail, including an 'Administrative History/Biography' which is "A concise essay or chronology that places the archival materials in context by providing information about their creator(s)". (http://www.loc.gov/ead/tglib1998/tlin020.html).

Archive Finding Aids typically include a ‘Profile Description’ which "bundles information about the creation of the encoded version of the finding aid, including the name of the agent, place, and date of encoding." (http://www.loc.gov/ead/tglib1998/tlin111.html). As well as the Profile Description the Finding Aid may also have a 'Revision Description' which records 'information about changes or alterations that have been made to the encoded finding aid' (http://www.loc.gov/ead/tglib1998/tlin121.html).

The LOCAH project (http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/) is in the process of creating Linked Data representations of Archive records, and the RDTF vision (http://rdtf.mimas.ac.uk/).

Use case Scenario

The biographical information in Archive records is thoroughly researched and may draw on unique and previously unseen sources as the archivist is at liberty to draw on the archival material they are describing.

In order to both exploit this information, and enhance it with data from other sources, a 'Biographical Dictionary' is built from Archive records expressed as Linked Data. Biographical information from other linked data sources is also included (e.g. Dbpedia).

When an end-user browses a biography they may wish to know where specific pieces of information have come from to assure themselves of the sources, or to check sources where there is contradictory information.

Each biographical entry in the dictionary would include a 'show sources' option which would display where each part of the entry was derived from both in terms of the data source (e.g. the name of an archival collection) and offer more detailed information from the related 'Profile Description' and 'Revision Description'. For non-Archive derived information, appropriate source information would be displayed (e.g. 'From Dbpedia'), and any further information where available.

Problems and Limitations

The information contained in a Finding Aid ‘Profile Description’ and ‘Revision Description’ is neither standardise nor structured, although there are best practice guidelines that may be followed in many cases.

This means that there may not be detailed provenance information for specific pieces of information within the Biographical element of the Finding Aid.

Requirements for Provenance

Ideally someone accessing a biographical entry in the dictionary should be able to see for each piece of information:

The general source of information derived (either a specific Archive Collection, or another source)
When the information was created
Who created the information
Detailed sources for the information

Related Work

LOCAH http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/
JISC RDTF http://rdtf.mimas.ac.uk/

Archive Driven Biographical Dictionary

From ESIWiki

Contents