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Notes in Art Cataloging

LD4P ArtFrame, 2018-03-27

Table of Contents

Background

Notes are ubiquitous in traditional cataloging. Art cataloging is no exception. Existing content standards direct the cataloger to record a wide array of information in free text notes, structured notes, or note-like elements. Much of that practice will need to be reviewed going forward and converted as much as possible into more linked-data friendly practices. Structured listings, such as performer notes, are a case in point. However, there will always be some information that cannot be recorded in any other way than using a note. CCO–Cataloging Cultural Objects states “Some institutions may require additional element-specific free-text notes to explain or qualify information in a number of particular elements throughout the Work Record—a Subject Note, Date Note, or Title Note, for example. These are useful because they can contain the nuances of language necessary to convey uncertainty and ambiguity that cannot otherwise easily be captured in controlled fields within any single element.” This use case will remain in a linked data environment.

The LD4P Team involved in the development of bibliotek-o, an ontology developed to show some alternative modeling of BIBFRAME concepts, experimented by using the Web Annotation model to record note and note-like information in one consistent format. Inspired by Princeton’s Derrida Archive Project, where the Web Annotation model was used to encode physical inscriptions on the items, the bibliotek-o developers suggested that cataloger supplied notes could be interpreted as annotations in line with the Web Annotation model. However, this approach was eventually abandoned in favor of interoperability with BIBFRAME as developed by the Library of Congress.

Notes in BIBFRAME

The paper BIBFRAME 2.0 Specifications: Notes (issued June 2016) outlines very succinctly the way that notes are handled in BIBFRAME. BIBFRAME includes a number of properties that are used to record note-like information, such as bf:credits, bf:awards, bf:contentAccessibility, or bf:natureOfContent just to name a few. These are referred to as informal notes. Formal notes are expressed though the class bf:Note and the object property bf:note. If a specific type of note needs to be expressed, then this can be done through a literal using the datatype property bf:noteType or through an external class. However, since no formal domain or range is declared for bf:note, this property can be used with any relevant node, thus the type of note can be inferred from its context making the use of bf:noteType unnecessary in these instances.

Recommendations for Moving Forward with ArtFrame

The ArtFrame group analyzed a number of content standards used in the library and art domains, such as RDA, CCO, or DCRM(G) to identify commonly used notes in art cataloging. The group went through this list of notes and found that many of them were available as “informal note” properties in BIBFRAME. Many other art related concept have now been modeled within the ArtFrame/RareMat extension ontology thus the note can be attached to the appropriate node and the note type is therefore implied. Only a handful of additional notes were left where the group felt that a different note type would need be specifically expressed. Rather than using the datatype property bf:noteType, the ArtFrame group decided to provide a level of standardization by modeling them as external subclasses of bf:Note. The proposed subclasses of bf:Note may also be used in the context of specific nodes to provide more precision.

bf:Note

arm:CaptionNote

arm:LimitationNote

arm:InaccuracyNote

arm:PreferredCitation

arm:RelatedMaterialNote

arm:SubjectNote

bf:note (Object property)

Diagrams

subject notes Descriptive note descriptive notes

RDF Samples

Descriptive note specifying information about the label

:item a bf:Item ;
    arm:markedBy :marking .

:marking a arm:Label ;
     bf:note :note1 .

:note1 a arm:DescriptiveNote ;
     rdf:value "Two labels that were once affixed to the back and have now fallen off. One is 
     an identifying label and the other is a xerox copy of a 1947 Boston Post news article
     about the life and work of Norman Ritchie."

Subject note

:work a bf:Work ;
    bf:note :note1 .

:note1 a arm:SubjectNote ;
    rdf:value "Two head-and-shoulder portraits in separate ornamental oval frames, one frame 
    held by eagle. "