From florence.clavaud at culture.gouv.fr Tue Sep 13 11:34:58 2016 From: florence.clavaud at culture.gouv.fr (CLAVAUD Florence (Archives nationales)) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:34:58 +0200 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] test Message-ID: <57D81CA2.6020209@culture.gouv.fr> This is just a test -- Document sans nom Florence Clavaud Conservateur en chef du patrimoine | Chief curator Charg?e de mission, responsable des r?f?rentiels documentaires | Authority records and Vocabularies project leader Direction des fonds Archives nationales 59 rue Guynemer 90001 93383 Pierrefitte-sur-Seine Cedex ? France T?l?phone : +33 (0)1 75 47 20 20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Merci de nous aider ? pr?server l'environnement en n'imprimant ce courriel et les documents joints que si n?cessaire. From j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk Fri Sep 16 10:07:02 2016 From: j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk (Bunn, Jenny) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:07:02 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Advice on form of consultation Message-ID: Many thanks to everyone on EGAD for completing this draft. It has clearly been a mammoth task! In the UK the Archives and Records Association Section for Archives and Technology are going to try to stir up discussion and facilitate the drawing up of a compilation of responses. We are meeting early next month to plan in detail, but for now I just wanted to ask about the form in which responses could best be structured to make EGAD's job easier. If we were to structure a response in the following way, would that work, or are you interested in feedback on additional/different things? Primary Entities 1. Do you agree with the membership of the list? Should anything else be included as a primary entity? Should anything be taken off this list? 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the entities in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? Properties 1. Do you agree with the lists of properties for each entity? Should anything be added/taken away? 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the properties in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? Relations 1. Do you agree with the lists of relations? Can you suggest further relations? 2. How should these relations be presented? What information do you need/would you like about each relation? General comments 1. Anything else you want to say. If there is anything we can do to present our comments in a way that is helpful to you, please let us know. All the best, Jenny Bunn Lecturer and Programme Director, Archives and Records Management Department of Information Studies University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT U.K. Email: j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk Direct Line: 020 7679 2481 (non-UK: +44 20 7679 2481) Fax: 020 7383 0557 (non-UK: +44 20 7383 0557) From descriptionguy at gmail.com Sat Sep 17 05:32:37 2016 From: descriptionguy at gmail.com (Chris Hurley) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 19:32:37 +1000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Relationships in RiC Message-ID: Someone has certainly been busy - 792 relationships and still counting. Phew! I read somewhere that a diligent German historian was only able to find 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. We certainly got that beat. This is a list of implementation options rather than a conceptual model ? some of the logical possibilities when designing and implementing an application. To explore the full range of possibilities, two things are needed : 1. the underlying relationship-types must be identified; 2. the terms must be defined (cf. p.39) so that we all interpret the words in the same way. Then we can pay more attention to refining or expanding those concepts that are currently being most contested (e.g. ?create?) and to discovering additional instances (e.g. ?received by? under Transmission, ?involved party? under Formation, ?adopted (by)? under Existential Features, etc.). But it is more important to conceptualise than to itemise, therefore (by way of example): One could begin with a thesis (inviting the antithesis) that provenance is to be found in Relationship-Type : Formation (see below). This could be tested by examining whether the 63 instances listed so far are, in fact, acceptable statements of provenance and whether any other ideas about provenance, of the kind that have been put forward lately in the literature, can fit within the instances listed or require additional instances to accommodate them. Is provenance only to be found within Formation? Are there formative relationships that are not allowable statements of provenance? Can provenance be found in other Relationship-Types? Does a formative relationship between Agents ("establish", for example) confer ambient provenance vicariously on a document-type? If so, how would that differ from "uses [agent-delegate]" which I have nominated as Existential? Alternatively, should ambience and provenance be kept conceptually separate? Does the Relationship-Type framework assist or hinder in (re)defining or (re)imagining our core concepts such as provenance. I have trouble with two of the proposed entity-types (viz. Date and Place) of which more anon, so I can?t yet come to terms with those proposed relationships involving one or other or both of those (204 out of the total). Interestingly, I singled these two out as problems long before I reached p.91 where Date and Place are also nominated as "properties" of relationships so maybe I'm not alone in needing to think some more about them. And I don?t think it?s worth dwelling long over the relationship-type ?associated with? (292 out of the total). We?ve used that for years as a cop out for making links where we are too lazy or too uncertain to be specific. Anything can be associated with anything and, once you?ve said that, there?s not much more to say and little benefit from saying it 292 times. Of the remainder, here is my first attempt at a categorisation into relationship-types (without the benefit of certainty as to what any of the terms mean): - Relationship-Type : Formation (63 instances) viz. ?create/created by?; ?authored?; ?collect(ed); ?wrote/written?; results from/in?; ?accumulate?; ?assemble?; ?arrange?; ?establish?. - Relationship-Type : Governance (42 instances) viz. ?owns/owned by?; ?rights held?; ?controls?; ?directs?; ?manages?; ?superior/subordinate?. - Relationship-Type : Succession (22 instances) viz. ?successor/predecessor?; ?parent/child?. - Relationship-Type : Belonging (30 instances) viz. ?part/part of?; ?member of?; ?is/has example?. - Relationship-Type : Possession (12 instances) viz. ?held/holder?. - Relationship-Type : Transmission (4 instances) viz. ?sent by?. - Relationship-Type : Documentary Features (73 instances) viz. ?copy of?; ?draft/original of?; ?subject of?; ?addressee?; ?documentary form?; ?evidence of?. - Relationship-Type : Existential Features (57 instances) viz. ?has/had functional relation?; ?assumed identity?; ?sibling/spouse?; ?uses [agent-delegate]?; ?pursues/occupies [position or occupation]?; ?fulfils [function]?; ?performs [activity]: ?authorize(d)?; ?required competency?; ?defined/revised [by mandate]?. There is, of course, much room for debate (e.g. is ?authorize? an instance of the Governance or Existential type?). Nevertheless, I would find discussion at that level more rewarding than simply multiplying instances before something like that has been done. All the best Chris Hurley www.descriptionguy.com From dpitti at virginia.edu Tue Sep 20 09:21:36 2016 From: dpitti at virginia.edu (Pitti, Daniel V. (dvp4c)) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 13:21:36 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Advice on form of consultation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115FCFCF-5DDC-454C-92E7-D150088998C8@virginia.edu> Dear Jenny, After consulting with the members of EGAD, I write to say that we think your review strategy good, with one important suggestion. The suggestion: move general comments to the top and include general observations on the model as a whole, the objectives, etc. Thanks, Daniel Pitti Chair of ICA EGAD > On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:07 AM, Bunn, Jenny wrote: > > Many thanks to everyone on EGAD for completing this draft. It has clearly been a mammoth task! > > In the UK the Archives and Records Association Section for Archives and Technology are going to try to stir up discussion and facilitate the drawing up of a compilation of responses. We are meeting early next month to plan in detail, but for now I just wanted to ask about the form in which responses could best be structured to make EGAD's job easier. If we were to structure a response in the following way, would that work, or are you interested in feedback on additional/different things? > > Primary Entities > 1. Do you agree with the membership of the list? Should anything else be included as a primary entity? Should anything be taken off this list? > 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the entities in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? > > Properties > 1. Do you agree with the lists of properties for each entity? Should anything be added/taken away? > 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the properties in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? > > Relations > 1. Do you agree with the lists of relations? Can you suggest further relations? > 2. How should these relations be presented? What information do you need/would you like about each relation? > > General comments > 1. Anything else you want to say. > > If there is anything we can do to present our comments in a way that is helpful to you, please let us know. > > All the best, > Jenny Bunn > > Lecturer and Programme Director, Archives and Records Management > Department of Information Studies > University College London > Gower Street > London WC1E 6BT > U.K. > > Email: j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk > Direct Line: 020 7679 2481 (non-UK: +44 20 7679 2481) > Fax: 020 7383 0557 (non-UK: +44 20 7383 0557) > > _______________________________________________ > ICA-EGAD-RiC mailing list > ICA-EGAD-RiC at lists.village.Virginia.EDU > http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/ica-egad-ric From j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk Wed Sep 21 03:13:40 2016 From: j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk (Bunn, Jenny) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:13:40 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Advice on form of consultation In-Reply-To: <115FCFCF-5DDC-454C-92E7-D150088998C8@virginia.edu> References: <115FCFCF-5DDC-454C-92E7-D150088998C8@virginia.edu> Message-ID: Dear Daniel, Thank you very much for getting back to me. We will follow your recommendations - from the general to the specific still holds :) Best wishes, Jenny -----Original Message----- From: Pitti, Daniel V. (dvp4c) [mailto:dpitti at virginia.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2016 2:22 PM To: Bunn, Jenny Cc: ica-egad-ric at lists.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Advice on form of consultation Dear Jenny, After consulting with the members of EGAD, I write to say that we think your review strategy good, with one important suggestion. The suggestion: move general comments to the top and include general observations on the model as a whole, the objectives, etc. Thanks, Daniel Pitti Chair of ICA EGAD > On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:07 AM, Bunn, Jenny wrote: > > Many thanks to everyone on EGAD for completing this draft. It has clearly been a mammoth task! > > In the UK the Archives and Records Association Section for Archives and Technology are going to try to stir up discussion and facilitate the drawing up of a compilation of responses. We are meeting early next month to plan in detail, but for now I just wanted to ask about the form in which responses could best be structured to make EGAD's job easier. If we were to structure a response in the following way, would that work, or are you interested in feedback on additional/different things? > > Primary Entities > 1. Do you agree with the membership of the list? Should anything else be included as a primary entity? Should anything be taken off this list? > 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the entities in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? > > Properties > 1. Do you agree with the lists of properties for each entity? Should anything be added/taken away? > 2. Do you have any specific comments on any of the properties in particular, e.g. changes to wording, additional examples, confusion about usage? > > Relations > 1. Do you agree with the lists of relations? Can you suggest further relations? > 2. How should these relations be presented? What information do you need/would you like about each relation? > > General comments > 1. Anything else you want to say. > > If there is anything we can do to present our comments in a way that is helpful to you, please let us know. > > All the best, > Jenny Bunn > > Lecturer and Programme Director, Archives and Records Management > Department of Information Studies University College London Gower > Street London WC1E 6BT U.K. > > Email: j.bunn at ucl.ac.uk > Direct Line: 020 7679 2481 (non-UK: +44 20 7679 2481) > Fax: 020 7383 0557 (non-UK: +44 20 7383 0557) > > _______________________________________________ > ICA-EGAD-RiC mailing list > ICA-EGAD-RiC at lists.village.Virginia.EDU > http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/ica-egad-ric From dpitti at virginia.edu Wed Sep 21 05:34:09 2016 From: dpitti at virginia.edu (Pitti, Daniel V. (dvp4c)) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 09:34:09 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Relationships in RiC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Chris, Thank you very much for beginning the discussion, and in particular for focusing on relations. I think you are correct in saying that the current list of relations under each of the high-level entities is not a conceptual model. I would say that working our way to the relations being properly conceptually modeled is underway but by no means complete. The list as is, however, would not be a good implementation specification because, as you point out repeatedly, it is redundant. The list, in fact, comes from a much shorter list of unique types, expanded to make explicit each possible relation of each entity, as domain, to each of the other entities, as range. We did this to make it easy for a reader to explore the possible ways each entity may be related to the other entities. (We also assumed that some people would be alarmed at the length of the list!). Aside from the methods we use to develop and maintain the relations, we are contemplating, that the relation types ought to be expressed in at least two ways in the printed model: an ordered list (alphabetical?), classified by conceptual type (along the lines you suggest in your classification below, though more in a minute), with among other bits to be decided, clear definitions; and then additional lists (tables, really), one for each entity, giving the available relations for each entity to each of the other entities. Also, I think, it would be good to make the relation types available as an online reference resource, to enable searching and exploring from multiple perspectives. We would welcome suggestions in this regard. The unique list of types used to generate the repetitive lists as given, by the way, would make a better implementation specification. The need to classify and conceptually organized the types is very much on our agenda. I think your first pass very good, but others have been suggested. Gavan McCarthy advocated categorizing them to me a while back, though we have not had a chance to pursue his suggestions. And more recently, Ken Thibodeau did the same, with a suggested approach based on UML. And so a good open discussion that leads to rough consensus (?I can live with that?) if not absolute consensus, would be very welcome. I think it would be a great opportunity to push our understandings and the model to greater clarity. Also, to make consensus easier to achieve, it is perfectly possible that some relation types might, in fact, be classified in more than one way. I have not thought this through, but it is almost always the case when the set of things to be classified is sufficiently complex, that a strict classification frequently leads to dilemmas. As for ?associated with.,? you state that "We?ve used that for years as a cop out for making links where we are too lazy or too uncertain to be specific.? I do think it certainly can be used when one is lazy. The model has no cure for that! But it also may be used as a matter of economy, when someone simply does not have the time to investigate further. And finally, it may well be the case there is sufficient evidence to say that A and B are associated with one another, but not enough evidence to be more specific. Further, I would argue, as unsatisfying as ?associated with? may be, it is actually quite powerful to know that A and B, as two entities floating around the universe, are somehow associated as opposed to not knowing it. Of course we would want to say ?based on this evidence,? as the assertion that A and B are related needs to be based on evidence, sparse though it may be at the time of the assertion. (We have not yet modeled being able to say that Agent A (holding the Position ?) asserts that A and B are related based on this evidence (say, a specific record). It is on the agenda. Again thank you for initiating this discussion. Regards, Daniel > On Sep 17, 2016, at 5:32 AM, Chris Hurley wrote: > > Someone has certainly been busy - 792 relationships and still counting. > Phew! I read somewhere that a diligent German historian was only able to > find 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. We certainly got that > beat. This is a list of implementation options rather than a conceptual > model ? some of the logical possibilities when designing and implementing > an application. To explore the full range of possibilities, two things are > needed : > > 1. the underlying relationship-types must be identified; > 2. the terms must be defined (cf. p.39) so that we all interpret the > words in the same way. > > Then we can pay more attention to refining or expanding those concepts that > are currently being most contested (e.g. ?create?) and to discovering > additional instances (e.g. ?received by? under Transmission, ?involved > party? under Formation, ?adopted (by)? under Existential Features, etc.). > But it is more important to conceptualise than to itemise, therefore (by > way of example): > > One could begin with a thesis (inviting the antithesis) that provenance is > to be found in Relationship-Type : Formation (see below). This could be > tested by examining whether the 63 instances listed so far are, in fact, > acceptable statements of provenance and whether any other ideas about > provenance, of the kind that have been put forward lately in the > literature, can fit within the instances listed or require additional > instances to accommodate them. Is provenance only to be found within > Formation? Are there formative relationships that are not allowable > statements of provenance? Can provenance be found in other > Relationship-Types? Does a formative relationship between Agents > ("establish", for example) confer ambient provenance vicariously on a > document-type? If so, how would that differ from "uses [agent-delegate]" > which I have nominated as Existential? Alternatively, should ambience and > provenance be kept conceptually separate? Does the Relationship-Type > framework assist or hinder in (re)defining or (re)imagining our core > concepts such as provenance. > > > I have trouble with two of the proposed entity-types (viz. Date and Place) > of which more anon, so I can?t yet come to terms with those proposed > relationships involving one or other or both of those (204 out of the > total). Interestingly, I singled these two out as problems long before I > reached p.91 where Date and Place are also nominated as "properties" of > relationships so maybe I'm not alone in needing to think some more about > them. And I don?t think it?s worth dwelling long over the > relationship-type ?associated with? (292 out of the total). We?ve used > that for years as a cop out for making links where we are too lazy or too > uncertain to be specific. Anything can be associated with anything and, > once you?ve said that, there?s not much more to say and little benefit from > saying it 292 times. Of the remainder, here is my first attempt at a > categorisation into relationship-types (without the benefit of certainty as > to what any of the terms mean): > > - > > Relationship-Type : Formation (63 instances) viz. ?create/created by?; > ?authored?; ?collect(ed); ?wrote/written?; results from/in?; ?accumulate?; > ?assemble?; ?arrange?; ?establish?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Governance (42 instances) viz. ?owns/owned by?; > ?rights held?; ?controls?; ?directs?; ?manages?; ?superior/subordinate?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Succession (22 instances) viz. > ?successor/predecessor?; ?parent/child?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Belonging (30 instances) viz. ?part/part of?; > ?member of?; ?is/has example?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Possession (12 instances) viz. ?held/holder?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Transmission (4 instances) viz. ?sent by?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Documentary Features (73 instances) viz. ?copy of?; > ?draft/original of?; ?subject of?; ?addressee?; ?documentary form?; > ?evidence of?. > - > > Relationship-Type : Existential Features (57 instances) viz. ?has/had > functional relation?; ?assumed identity?; ?sibling/spouse?; ?uses > [agent-delegate]?; ?pursues/occupies [position or occupation]?; ?fulfils > [function]?; ?performs [activity]: ?authorize(d)?; ?required competency?; > ?defined/revised [by mandate]?. > > There is, of course, much room for debate (e.g. is ?authorize? an instance > of the Governance or Existential type?). Nevertheless, I would find > discussion at that level more rewarding than simply multiplying instances > before something like that has been done. > > All the best > > Chris Hurley > www.descriptionguy.com > _______________________________________________ > ICA-EGAD-RiC mailing list > ICA-EGAD-RiC at lists.village.Virginia.EDU > http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/ica-egad-ric From descriptionguy at gmail.com Sat Sep 24 02:53:40 2016 From: descriptionguy at gmail.com (Chris Hurley) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 16:53:40 +1000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Relationships in RiC Message-ID: Resending this because it doesn't seem to have got through the first time. I have no problem with a long list that illustrates a concept. The RiC 1.0 list of relationships could easily stretch from 792 instances to 7,920 and beyond. Thinking up new instances could become a parlour game for archivists. My interest is in what principle(s) the instances illustrate. My suggested categorisation was derived from what is there is RiC 1.0 and is not what I would have come up with if I'd started with a blank page, so "something to live with" would indeed be most welcome. What I mean by implementation is that, w/o further explanation, one has to infer what the terms mean and how they might be used. Taking "creates", for example, and ignoring for the moment its diverse and often contested meanings (simply taking it as an unproblematic idea) it can be applied as a relationship thus: [ACTOR A][RECORD X] and this seems to be the how RiC 1.0 means it to be understood. But all recordkeeping is based on describing action and circumstance and "creates" is an action which can, therefore, be rendered as a FUNCTION rather than a relationship (as well as, not instead of). The descriptive statement "A creates X" can then be rendered differently within the RiC 1.0 framework, where FUNCTION M = creates, as: [ACTOR A][FUNCTION M][RECORD X]. It may be that somewhere in the list of possible relations in RiC 1.0 the option of using this second formulation is already provided for but, if so, only the diligent will find it and, absent more explanation, some of them may not understand that these are two allowable ways of achieving the same result. I agree, therefore, with those who have argued that it is important to draw out statements about how relationships are formed from the list of enumerated possibilities. In the first formulation, according to RiC 1.0, Date & Place could be formulated as properties of a relation and also as instances of Entity-Types in their own right (instead of rather than as well as in any particular instance, I suppose). In the second formulation, it would be easy to link an instance of a Date-Entity and an instance of a Place-Entity to an instance of Function M. For those working a formed archive, the second formulation may seem unnecessarily complex but those involved in active record-making may encounter '000s of create transactions every day and a developer might find it a more effective way of reaching the same outcome (viz. a statement to the effect that "A creates X"). Developers are clever people and could, no doubt, come up with lots more ways of achieving the same outcome for every rule, taking account of the differing needs of their client populations, so long as we provide them with a robust conceptual framework. All the best Chris Hurley www.descriptionguy.com From bill.stockting at royal.gsx.gov.uk Mon Sep 26 09:31:42 2016 From: bill.stockting at royal.gsx.gov.uk (Bill Stockting) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 13:31:42 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] test Message-ID: This is a test Bill Royal Household Legal Disclaimer - This message and any attachments should only be read by those persons to whom it is addressed and be used by them for its intended purpose. The Royal Household cannot accept liability for statements made which are clearly the sender's own and not made on behalf of the Royal Household. Replies to this email address may be subject to interception or monitoring for operational reasons or for lawful business purposes. From charonitisg at gmail.com Sun Oct 2 09:00:25 2016 From: charonitisg at gmail.com (george charonitis) Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2016 16:00:25 +0300 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] RiC Message-ID: Congratulations, a major step. Here are some remarks: 1) Agree with Mr. Chris Hurley about conceptualization of relations. Glad that EGAD is going to form a draft. Hope the task will be accomplished soon in order to be incorporated into the final version of RiC, not afterwards. 2) Need definitions-clarification: a) Context. "Records in Contexts", many "contexts" in the text, but there is not a clear definition. b) Provenance: Associated with Agent only? Does Function constitute an element of provenance (as ISDF states?). If yes which one: Function, Function (abstract), or both? c) What is the relationship between context and provenance? Which of the entities in RiC fall into context and which into provenance? d) Creation, accumulation, selection: what do all these terms mean? What are the relationships between them? 3) Function: Would it be better if stated as "business function"? 4) Date - Place: Having no records management experience, I cannot understand why treat them as entities rather than shared properties of all entities. 5) Arrangement vs Classification. When it comes to relationships among record sets I think that classification is one of the possible ways of arrangement. Record sets may be arranged according to a classification scheme or not. After all, recordkeeping is contingent on circumstances of creation and use. We also use the notion of archival arrangement. In other words, the definition provided in P26 and P27 needs enrichment and clarification of relationships and differences between the two properties. 6) P31 Scope and Content (property of record set): Scope is null. I think that Scope of P9 (Scope and Content of Record (Entity)) can be copied here. 7) I think that ISDIAH is an unnecessary standard from a theoretical point of view, because it documents the custody of records that is a relationship. Furthermore, incorporating into RiC properties which are considered to be associated with institutions with archival holdings (P38 Services to the public, P40 Operating hours, and P41 Facilities) could be misleading because those are properties of every public agency, for example. On the contrary, Contact Information is crucial in documenting a trasferring agency for example or a donor. Best regards, George Charonitis Archivist at General State Archives of Greece From John.Machin at finance.gov.au Mon Oct 3 17:23:43 2016 From: John.Machin at finance.gov.au (Machin, John) Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2016 21:23:43 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] RiC-O use of existing related ontologies [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Message-ID: <980b4afccca6449f8c4bf0e4fa4e5d53@CDC1PEXHMRS01.prdmgd.finance.gov.au> UNCLASSIFIED Hello, I have a question about the development of the Records in Context ontology (RiC-O), I hope this is an acceptable medium for such questions. To what extent, if any, are existing ontologies with possible relevance to this topic being used in the preparation of the RiC-O? I ask because while it is good citizenship to reuse existing ontologies it can also present issues if it causes the new ontology to be a Frankenstein's monster of catachresis if the existing ontologies patterns and elements don't tessellate well. I'm interested particularly in the use/non-use of the W3C's Provenance Ontology (PROV-O) and the ontology representation of PREMIS 2.2. Any choice of upper/abstract ontology would also be very interesting. Regards, John Machin | Information Architect - Records Interoperability Framework Efficiency, Assurance and Digital Government Government Business Transformation | Governance & APS Transformation Department of Finance T: 02 6215 1929 | M: 0424 531 001 E: john.machin at finance.gov.au A: One Canberra Avenue, Forrest, ACT 2603 UNCLASSIFIED ________________________________ Finance Australian Business Number (ABN): 61 970 632 495 Finance Web Site: www.finance.gov.au IMPORTANT: This transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by telephone on 61-2-6215-2222 and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments. If responding to this email, please send to the appropriate person using the suffix .gov.au. ________________________________ From florence.clavaud at culture.gouv.fr Tue Oct 4 03:06:03 2016 From: florence.clavaud at culture.gouv.fr (CLAVAUD Florence (Archives nationales)) Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2016 09:06:03 +0200 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] RiC-O use of existing related ontologies [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] In-Reply-To: <980b4afccca6449f8c4bf0e4fa4e5d53@CDC1PEXHMRS01.prdmgd.finance.gov.au> References: <980b4afccca6449f8c4bf0e4fa4e5d53@CDC1PEXHMRS01.prdmgd.finance.gov.au> Message-ID: <57F354DB.7010101@culture.gouv.fr> Hi John, We have listed several ontologies whose domains are related to RiC one, and/or whose design is interesting for our own work. PROV-O is one of them, along with OAI-ORE, FOAF, the Organization Ontology, LODE, and others. And course CIDOC-CRM, which can be considered in a way as an upper ontology, like DOLCE. We most probably will not borrow any class or property from these existing domain ontologies. We will rather build a domain ontology from the archival concepts and relations defined in RiC-CM (with a finer level of granularity of course), where any institution or person (mainly archivists, but also records managers, users...) can find what it/he/she needs for describing records and their contexts. Then we will align RiC-O to other ontologies when possible. We can tell much more a few weeks later. Best regards, Florence Clavaud EGAD member, RiC-O development lead Document sans nom Florence Clavaud Conservateur en chef du patrimoine | Chief curator Charg?e de mission, responsable des r?f?rentiels documentaires | Authority records and Vocabularies project leader Direction des fonds Archives nationales 59 rue Guynemer 90001 93383 Pierrefitte-sur-Seine Cedex --- France T?l?phone : +33 (0)1 75 47 20 20 -------- Message original -------- Sujet: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] RiC-O use of existing related ontologies [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] De : Machin, John Pour : ica-egad-ric at lists.village.Virginia.EDU Date : Lundi 3 Octobre 2016 23:23:43 > UNCLASSIFIED > > Hello, > > I have a question about the development of the Records in Context ontology (RiC-O), I hope this is an acceptable medium for such questions. > > To what extent, if any, are existing ontologies with possible relevance to this topic being used in the preparation of the RiC-O? > I ask because while it is good citizenship to reuse existing ontologies it can also present issues if it causes the new ontology to be a Frankenstein's monster of catachresis if the existing ontologies patterns and elements don't tessellate well. > > I'm interested particularly in the use/non-use of the W3C's Provenance Ontology (PROV-O) and the ontology representation of PREMIS 2.2. > Any choice of upper/abstract ontology would also be very interesting. > > Regards, > > John Machin | Information Architect - Records Interoperability Framework > Efficiency, Assurance and Digital Government > Government Business Transformation | Governance & APS Transformation > Department of Finance > T: 02 6215 1929 | M: 0424 531 001 > E: john.machin at finance.gov.au > A: One Canberra Avenue, Forrest, ACT 2603 > > UNCLASSIFIED > > ________________________________ > > Finance Australian Business Number (ABN): 61 970 632 495 > Finance Web Site: www.finance.gov.au > > IMPORTANT: > > This transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. > If you have received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by telephone on 61-2-6215-2222 and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments. > If responding to this email, please send to the appropriate person using the suffix .gov.au. > > ________________________________ > _______________________________________________ > ICA-EGAD-RiC mailing list > ICA-EGAD-RiC at lists.village.Virginia.EDU > http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/ica-egad-ric ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Merci de nous aider ? pr?server l'environnement en n'imprimant ce courriel et les documents joints que si n?cessaire. From descriptionguy at gmail.com Tue Oct 11 13:46:05 2016 From: descriptionguy at gmail.com (Chris Hurley) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:46:05 +1100 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Entities in RiC Message-ID: Confusion between Recordkeeping Entities and Authority Records began with ISAAR. This seems an apposite moment to correct the misunderstanding. Four of the 14 proposed Entities (Documentary Form, Date, Place, Concept/Thing) could be represented as properties of the ten remaining. There is no harm in having those four as entities if that is useful (though the utility eludes me) and many more besides. In some metadata schemas, Relationships are nominated as entities, for example. But, if you?re going to name four, you should make it clear that many other kinds of entity are possible and, if you?re going to name those four, you should make it clear that they can (optionally) be treated as properties. Alternatively, true Authority Records, like EAC-CPF and SNAC, could be built for Documentary Form, Date, Place, Concept/Thing, etc., etc. to control data content of the properties of Recordkeeping Entities. This leads on to the question whether we need to stipulate the properties of Authority Records used in recordkeeping. The other ten Entities proposed in RiC 1.0 are true Recordkeeping Entities whose properties can be controlled by Authority Records of one kind or another (or not, as the user decides). These ten entities can be conceptualised as instances (not the only possible ones) of three basic Entity-Types that are particular to recordkeeping : ? DEEDS: events or circumstances that give rise to recordkeeping ? e.g. functions, functions (abstract), activities, mandates, processes, responsibilities, products, etc.; ? DOERS: actors who undertake the Deeds - e.g. agents, occupations, positions, corporations, agencies, processes, persons, families, etc.; ? DOCUMENTS: memories of Deeds undertaken - e.g. records, record components, record sets, series*, fonds*, documentary objects, processes, artefacts, legends, myths, etc. I deliberately include ?process? under all three types to illustrate the point that the same thing can be described in more than one way, using different Entity-Types as appropriate. I have already suggested the use of Relationship Types and I think using Entity Types is a better way also. Four properties are common to all Recordkeeping Entity-Types in RiC 1.0 (Global Persistent Id, Local Id, Name, and General Note) and to those I would wish to add Date (either as a relationship or a property). Within the framework of an entity-relationship model, that would satisfy what I see as the mandatory requirements for all Recordkeeping Entities - viz. that they possess : ? IDENTITY: because every record is unique; ? DATES: because every record is time-bound; ? RELATIONSHIPS: because no record stands alone. Other common properties, such as name, are useful but not essential in recordkeeping. If I were modelling RiC, I would represent the common properties as belonging to a Super-Type of the kind I have sometimes called the URO (Universal Recordkeeping Object), and more facetiously the HERO (Hurley?s Enduring Recordkeeping Object). I think a good many more properties (e.g. Description) could be remodelled as common to all Recordkeeping Entities and brought into the URO either because they are already common to all Recordkeeping Entities in RiC or should be. Other properties might be better handled in other ways, at least as alternative options. Some of these are trifling but ?Accruals? (P24 & P25) should be given further thought. Accruals are part of a Process (viz. accessioning) and some people might want to document accessions as Record Sets (or Sub-Sets for incorporation into Sets). I would. That suggests that an option needs to be provided allowing accruals to be treated as Record Sub-Sets with relationships to Record Sets as part of the history of the formation of the Set and not merely as a property forecasting future possibilities. In the physical world, it was sometimes necessary to manage Transfers or Deposits as entities (Record Sub-Sets) separately from Accessions because they comprised one of more Accessions, formed before, during, or after relocation, and I imagine that similar entities might be useful during data migrations. All the best Chris Hurley www.descriptionguy.com From Greg.Bak at umanitoba.ca Tue Nov 8 14:39:10 2016 From: Greg.Bak at umanitoba.ca (Greg Bak) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 19:39:10 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] RiC-CM: Indigenous perspectives & social media Message-ID: Hello, A quick introduction. I am an assistant professor of history (archival studies) at the University of Manitoba in Canada. While my principal research areas are in digital archives, the history of digital archiving and archival decolonization, I have a strong interest in archival description and was involved in the recent discussions of the Expert Advisory Group on the Future of RAD. EGAD is to be commended for its work on RiC-CM to date. It is evident that the committee has taken seriously its mandate to consider how to update archival description while still respecting our past approaches, including our vast legacy of existing archival descriptions. Thank you for undertaking this work, and especially for following a truly open and consultative process that includes sufficient lead-time for non-members to read and discuss RiC-CM before submitting feedback. Thanks as well for establishing this listserv as a method of asynchronous, dynamic discussion. My questions today are pretty preliminary. I am still working through the conceptual model. It is entirely possible that you have already considered the issues that I raise, or that they can be accommodated within the existing model. For the moment I wanted to raise them as concerns, while I continue to think about the model and how they might apply. Indigenous Perspectives The RiC-CM introduction acknowledges certain weaknesses in EGAD?s membership in terms of national, regional and even hemispheric representation. My particular concern is for the lack of Indigenous perspectives on social memory evident within the conceptual model. I believe that archiving should be understood as one of a range of social memory practices. An historical understanding of settler colonialism, moreover, demonstrates that archiving is not a culturally neutral technology of memory, but one that has been prejudicial to Indigenous worldviews, forms of social memory and rights in the past. While Canada, the United States and Australia are all represented in EGAD, it isn?t clear how Indigenous perspectives from these nations (as well as other nations with significant splits between mainstream cultures and minority-Indigenous cultures, such as Finland and Brazil) are being addressed in the work of the committee. It may well be that these perspectives have been considered, but I don?t see evidence of this either in the report or its bibliography. I note particularly that the historical overview on p. 4 of the introduction offers a very Eurocentric account of the history of archives. If, as stated on p. 1, ?EGAD has focused on describing the world from an archival perspective,? then we should acknowledge the role archives have played and often continue to play in global colonial systems. We should include this history of colonization as part of archival history. Ideally, we would incorporate Indigenous voices and perspectives into archival standards such as RiC-CM, as per UNDRIP and the findings of Canada?s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We are fortunate that there has been quite a bit of work done in this area in the past few decades. Some of it, particularly important articles by Tom Nesmith, Chris Hurley and Wendy Duff and Verne Harris, are included in your bibliography, though not referenced in your report. Additionally, the Australian Trust and Technology project explored the colonial history of archives and has helped articulate Australian Indigenous perspectives on archives, social memory and recordkeeping, and the systems that underwrite these practices. Kim Christen?s work on Mukurtu CMS offers another take on types and functions of metadata in this Indigenous-focused CMS. Camille Callison, David George Shongo, Jennifer O?Neal and other Indigenous practitioners and scholars have explored North American Indigenous perspectives on archives and social memory. The Protocols for Native American Archival Materials offers advice from Indigenous archivists and allies on how to incorporate Indigenous perspectives on materials that are held in non-Indigenous institutions. Ongoing work at Canada?s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (located on the University of Manitoba campus) has begun to explore the implications of archival decolonization for metadata regimes and for archival management in general. In my preliminary look at RiC-CM, I particularly noted the lack of an acknowledgement of Indigenous perspectives on archives and other forms of social memory in the introduction. I am still thinking about how these might be accounted for within the conceptual model itself. The model allows for multiple provenances, and might accommodate the kind of Indigenous intellectual property regimes and access rights that Kim Christen focuses on in her work, including Mukurtu CMS. Nonetheless, I think it would be appropriate to have the model reviewed by some specialists in Indigenous archives, social memory, intellectual property and access rights to make sure that it can accommodate these practices and perspectives. Moreover, it seems to me that the brief historical comments in the introduction could be revised to promote a more pluralistic and less Eurocentric understanding of archival history and of the meanings of archives. Social Media Data Management Another gap that I noticed in the report and its bibliography in my preliminary reading is on social media data accumulation and management techniques, including the use of algorithms in digital records management and discovery. This, it seems to me, should be a key aspect of any emerging, digitally-focused archival description regime. As writers including Elizabeth Yakel, Catherine Hobbs, and Katie Shilton and Ramesh Srinivasan have argued, there is a close connection between archival description, archival management and archival appraisal. The way that we conceptualize records will affect all of these processes. As we move from the incredible abundance of analogue, digital and hybrid records in the post-WW2 era to the exponentially greater superabundance of the digital present, it is increasingly more important that we expand our tool set to include new techniques, including the use of algorithmic approaches to valuation, acquisition, management and discovery. I have argued in the past that one way for us to start to sketch out what this might look like is to explore how valuation and management is effected in social networks, and perhaps to learn from it. My article ?Continuous Classification? builds on David Bearman?s essential work in the 1990s on item-level management and explores how current archival standards work against such an approach. A second article of mine, currently under review for publication, which I have presented at various conferences, explores more directly how data management in social media differs from archival and bibliographic description. As in ?Continuous Classification?, I suggest that current approaches to archival description lack the ability to incorporate social media style data management both conceptually and physically. I am still puzzling through the question of whether RiC-CM could accommodate this kind of data management. As EGAD points out in its introduction, a precondition of the project is to remain rooted in the current ICA suite of descriptive standards. I fear that this condition, while important, may have predetermined certain responses to emerging areas of digital information management (emerging areas for archives and recordkeeping, despite being well established elsewhere). In particular, I find it difficult to see how the RiC-CM regime would manage the kind of granular data about information resource access, viewing and use that could underwrite approaches to discovery and valuation that would build on advances made in social media data management, or that are envisioned in Victoria Lemieux?s recent work on data visualization. However we move forward, we need to recognize that, while it is important to build bridges from our past practices to our future practices, our digital-centric future will require new tools to understand the new complexities of provenance and custody (briefly addressed in the RiC-CM introduction) as well as the valuation, management and discovery of our holdings (perhaps addressed in RiC-CM, though it could be done more explicitly) ? and even in the shifting nature of digital information (inadequately addressed in RiC-CM, though perhaps gestured towards with the inclusion of record parts). Finally, there are two projects that I didn?t see represented in your bibliography despite their relevance to the conceptual model. I know how much work it is to update standards once they are created. It is far better to try to include as many perspectives and as much previous work as possible in the first go-round. The first of these projects is Victoria Lemieux?s project on data visualizations and archival description. Since you consciously align your work with the notion of data visualization, I was surprised to see you cite her earlier paper on Jamaican banking records, but not her 2014 and 2015 articles on ?third order? archival interfaces and visual analytics. The second is the recently circulated report from DPLA on content aggregations. Since this report was only just released, it is understandable that it isn?t in your bibliography. I thought that I would point it out, since it is an interesting read and very relevant to your work. I hope that this posting promotes discussion of these concerns on this list and elsewhere. I hope to be reassured that EGAD has considered these questions, and that my perception of these voids in the report is based on my own incomplete grasp of your work. I am appreciative of ICA?s leadership on this, and of the excellent and extensive work that EGAD has already done. I would be happy to further discuss any of the points raised in this email. Best, Greg Greg Bak Assistant Professor, Master's Program in Archival Studies University of Manitoba, Department of History greg.bak at umanitoba.ca (204) 272-1578 Archival Studies Program Web site: http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/history/archives/index.html From Greg.Bak at umanitoba.ca Tue Dec 6 08:55:32 2016 From: Greg.Bak at umanitoba.ca (Greg Bak) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:55:32 +0000 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Technological and cultural dependencies Message-ID: On November 28 I sat down with a few other archivists in Winnipeg to hash out some reactions to RiC-CM. We were kindly joined, by Skype, by EGAD member Kat Timms. The following post offers expresses why I think that RiC-CM does not sufficiently address the interrelated issues of the hardware and software dependencies of digital records and the cultural contingency of all record and recordkeeping technologies. I apologize for the length of this posting, and recognize that my points may not always be completely clear. I would be happy to discuss it further with EGAD or with anyone else. Best, Greg Greg Bak Assistant Professor of History (Archival Studies) University of Manitoba RiC-CM offers a view of information consumption in which ?mediation? refers to whether or not a device is needed to render an information object (see for example P12 Media Type). The reality is that all information is mediated by technology and by culture: there is no such thing as culturally neutral information, or a non-mediating form of transmission. Information that does not require technology to read it (a book, for example) is not less mediated. Consider a wampum belt: as someone who is not a member of a wampum using culture I can see it but can?t read it. I require mediation to access the information represented in the wampum. Or to take another example, consider a manuscript ?news? letter from the eighteenth century: I can see it and read it, but I may misunderstand its meaning if I don?t also know that this was not a private letter exchanged between two confidantes, but rather was written for the purpose of public circulation. This practice was common in eighteenth century Europe and North America, but is liable to be misunderstood today as our own epistolary culture positions manuscript letters as intimate correspondence. Or consider the standard nineteenth century practices of letterbook and docket recordkeeping, reading of which does not require the mediation of a device but which does require that the user understand the system so as to navigate the different physical locations and formats of the correspondence, and the series of indices that link them. Perhaps this has not often been a problem in archival description in the past not because traditional archival materials do not require mediation, but because: (i) archives have tended to serve culturally homogeneous populations who could be expected to understand the implicit cultural and technological rules around archival records; and (ii) researchers who have been using materials old enough to be from culturally and technologically distinctive eras have tended to be specialists (such as historians) who understood the cultural rules at play. Both of these factors are changing today. In 2011 Elizabeth Yakel wrote about the ?first great opening? of archives starting in the 1960s and the ?second great opening? of archives starting in the 1990s. Yakel points out that archives have assiduously courted new users of archives both by acquiring records of interest to more diverse populations, and by reaching out to more diverse populations and inviting them into the archives. Archives have been working to address the growing diversity of their clientele by creating tools to introduce archival terminology and practices to new users, such as pamphlets, webpages and podcasts. Slowly but surely, these tools are expanding to include background information on obsolete forms of records and record keeping. Secondly, whereas past bureaucratic technologies have tended to be relatively long-lived and slow to change (the transition from letterbook and docket to subject files happened over decades), we are presently in an era in which digital technologies are changing very rapidly. These changes, moreover, are not just changes in the format of information, but in the functionalities on offer in various digital applications, and the affordances of the devices used to create, manage and use the records. Patricia Galloway?s 2011 exploration of the user culture that developed around the Kaypro II, an 1980s microcomputer, illustrates some of the constraints on word processing of this era: loading the application from floppies, for example, and being unable to run any other applications simultaneously ? not even the spellcheck, which required its own set of application floppies. Content created on the wordprocessor would be stored on yet more floppies, or on some other external memory device, creating challenges for version control, information discovery and access. Someone reading records produced on a Kaypro II who is only familiar with computer usage and wordprocessing today is unlikely to be able to understand such practical constraints on using the Kaypro II, and how such constraints might affect patterns of information creation, transmission, discovery and management. It is for this reason that the team at Emory University MARBL created their emulation of one of Salman Rushdie?s computers. By allowing researchers access not only to the content that Rushdie produced but also to the digital environment in which he wrote, MARBL signaled their belief that one cannot properly be understood without the other. The case that I am making here is essentially the same case that has been made repeatedly in our professional literature with regard to paper-based recordkeeping systems, as in Terry Cook?s ?Paper Trails? or Bill Russell?s 2013 study of recordkeeping in the office of Canada?s Superintendent General of Indian Affairs. These same points can be made with reference to many configurations of digital technologies, each with their own specific functionalities, limitations and affordances that have been in general use in the last fifty years. Unlike the transition from letterbook and docket to subject files, described so well in Cook?s ?Paper Trails?, many digital technologies like the Kaypro II did not attain widespread usage, but still may have been central to the record creating and keeping cultures in which they were deployed (as described in Galloway 2011). Others, like IBM PCs (or clones) running MS-DOS (whose command-line interface mystifies many of my undergraduate students today), did achieve widespread usage, but then rapidly fell out of usage. This brings us to the question of what are we attempting to describe, and why, through RiC-CM and other archival description standards. Are we simply providing description of the content of the records, so that people can access it, or are we using description to set the content into its appropriate context? Consider a key issue for digital information: system dependencies. Tracing the multiple dependencies among applications software, operating systems, firmware and hardware is a necessity for digital preservation. This point is all-too briefly acknowledged in RiC-CM in P18 Conditions for Access, which lists ?software/hardware necessary to access the record? along with other impediments to access such as intellectual property laws and security classifications. To my mind, there are multiple problems with P18, starting with the jumbling of the issue of system dependencies in with intellectual property laws and security classifications. Leaving this aside, though, this single reference to system dependencies in RiC-CM is also problematic as it suggests that system dependencies are only an issue because they may be an impediment in accessing content. There is no acknowledgement in RiC-CM that the functionalities and affordances of digital records and systems are in themselves part of the content that must be preserved and described. As I have noted, we don?t do this with analogue recordkeeping systems either. But then, we haven?t had analogue recordkeeping systems that have changed so much and so quickly, all within the working memory of people accessing information today. MS-DOS, after all, was still in use in the mid-1990s. Constant broadband access to the Internet over wifi, another game changer, is even more recent. Social media functionalities added into various systems for information creation, annotation and access represent another major shift in the nature and content of digital communications. Each of these had a major impact on how records were created, stored, transmitted, discovered and managed. This brings us back to the point that I started with: that all information is mediated, but that we are not always conscious of the specific ways that such mediation is woven into our culture and technologies, the fusion of culture into technology. No information communication is ?unmediated?, even if no specific device is required to read the information. Our own cultural biases can make us blind to mediations that seem ?natural? to us due to our own long immersion in them ? remember the example of a belt of wampum (or a petroform, or a wintercount, etc.), which requires no mediating device, but which does require cultural knowledge to decode its meaning. What I have called ?cultural knowledge? in the previous sentence could also be called ?technical knowledge?: the line between the two is arbitrary. Now imagine that you have a client who does not understand that transatlantic mail in the eighteenth century took months, that paper was expensive or that letters might be private, familial, corporate or public. For low usage, centuries old record sets, archivists have played the role of mediating cultural expert, explaining the constraints of older systems of records creation, keeping and management. Today?s rapid transformations of technology and increasing access of records over the Internet mean that such essential contextual information must be included in our descriptive and access systems. Such awareness of the cultural biases of all information objects and systems is not written into RiC-CM, but it is written into another key standard: OAIS. Figure 2-2 in OAIS succinctly expresses the goal of OAIS, which is not to preserve data objects but information objects. To do this, OAIS starts building from the ground up. Foundational to all is the concept of the Designated Community, for whom the OAIS exists, whose needs are paramount in designing the OAIS. The Designated Community possesses a Knowledge Base, a set of information that is assumed to be universal within the community. If comprehending an information object requires knowledge that is not part of this Knowledge Base, then the OAIS must deliver the necessary supplementary knowledge through the addition of Representation Information. This concept is illustrated in OAIS 2.2.1 with the example of a hardcopy book written in English. If English is not part of the Knowledge Base for the Designated Community, then the OAIS should furnish appropriate tools (such as a grammar and a dictionary) that would allow a member of the Designated Community to decode the data object and so render it into an information object. Later in the standard (4.2) a more detailed breakdown of Representation Information is presented, including its division into Structure Information and Semantic Information and the incorporation of this information into a Representation Network. OAIS positions the challenge of preserving information as one of not simply rendering records into a form in which a human can experience them. Rather, in OAIS the goal is always that members of the Designated Community can understand them. In this, OAIS moves beyond most of the work that is done within the archival community, including the then-path breaking ?performance model? of digital preservation envisioned by the National Archives of Australia in its Green Paper in 2000. Whereas NAA?s performance model adequately expressed the notion of technological mediation (as does the notion of mediation implicit in RiC-CM), it does not capture the related ideas of cultural mediation. The distinction in OAIS between the Data Object and the Information Object addresses both the challenge of rendering data objects (whether analogue or digital) and of addressing the cultural biases that are, inevitably though sometimes implicitly, part of any information object. It can be challenging for many archives to translate the concepts and processes described in OAIS, which were developed in relation to a relatively homogeneous Designated Community such as that of space data scientists, to the heterogeneous user communities of most public archives today. Nonetheless, it may be worth examining OAIS and its concept of preserving Information Objects as a way of exploring the true complexity of preserving records and representing them as the culturally and technologically mediated information sources that they are. References (from Google Scholar ? apologies for errors) Carroll, Laura, Erika Farr, Peter Hornsby, and Ben Ranker. "A comprehensive approach to born-digital archives." Archivaria 72 (2011): 61-92. Cook, Terry. "Paper Trails: A Study in Northern Records and Northern Administration, 1898-1958." For Purposes of Dominion: Essays in Honour of Morris Zaslow (1989): 13-35. Galloway, Patricia. "Personal computers, microhistory, and shared authority: Documenting the inventor-early adopter dialectic." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 33, no. 2 (2011): 60-74. Heslop, Helen, Simon Davis, and Andrew Wilson. An approach to the preservation of digital records. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2002. Russell, Bill. "Indian Department Headquarters Records, 1844?1861: A Case Study in Recordkeeping and Archival Custody." Archivaria 75 (2013). Yakel, Elizabeth. "Balancing archival authority with encouraging authentic voices to engage with records.? Theimer ed. A different kind of Web: New connections between archives and our users (2011): 75-101. From mcallahan at smith.edu Fri Dec 16 12:17:12 2016 From: mcallahan at smith.edu (Maureen Callahan) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 12:17:12 -0500 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Comments on RiC-CM Message-ID: Greetings, SAA's Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard recently submitted comments to the International Council on Archives' Expert Group on Archival Description (EGAD) on their first draft of RiC-CM (Records in Contexts Conceptual Model). We are sharing our comments more widely (to this group, as well as to a number of Society of American Archivists' component groups) in the interest of transparency and in the hopes of continuing the discussion. The Standards Committee of SAA will also be sharing a consolidated version of subcommittees' comments -- our comments represent our own views only. Warm wishes, Maureen Callahan (on behalf of TS-DACS) -- Maureen Callahan Sophia Smith Collection Archivist Smith College Special Collections Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 T. 413 585 2981 C. 215.863.1860 mcallahan at smith.edu From cneda at mecd.es Mon Dec 19 03:40:11 2016 From: cneda at mecd.es (cneda at mecd.es) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 09:40:11 +0100 Subject: [ICA-EGAD-RiC] Comentarios a RiC de la CNEDA / RiC comments from CNEDA Message-ID: <1DF451E88673F7459694D34FDEE08F6285983ECF15@CORREO-EXC.MCU.ES> Dear colleagues, We formally submit comments to RiC-CM, in Spanish and English versions, from Commission on Spanish Standards of Archival Description (CNEDA). We also want to take this opportunity to thank the International Council on Archives in general and particularly the Experts Group on Archival Description, for the effort made in this project, for which we are ready to continue collaborating in the future. Best regards. ________________________________ Secretary of CNEDA cneda at mecd.es