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Introduction
Words matter. In conservation we select the terms we use in our documentation with specificity. The ‘knocked corner’ on a pamphlet is different from a ‘dog eared corner’. The identification of an adhesive mix used on a spine lining will impact success for later removal. Communicating clearly and specifically about the words we use in our treatment documentation is critical to our work.
Our word choices are not always the same from lab to lab, from specialty to specialty, or across languages. Variation is due to many factors including different traditions, training systems and specialty practices. Restricting word choices is not desirable and will not result in meaningful sharing of information.
However, it is possible to explain the meaning behind terms and associate words used locally (in a lab or organisation) with a well-defined concept. Aligning local words with concepts allows searching across labs, specialties and languages. Records produced using terms and concepts from one lab/vocabulary can be searched using terms and concepts from another. Through this repository a conservator will be able to use familiar terminology to search records produced by other labs, in a different specialty, or even a different language.
Taking part by contributing your terms means that you will be able to search conservation records using your own terminology (even if they have been produced with a different terminology).
The group of technologies collectively described as Linked Data require that conservation documentation be machine readable. Specific terms are matched to a concept (identified by a URI, see Encoding records) - for example the Getty’s Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) includes an entry for super (URI: http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300263577), a bookbinding term with many variations. By matching a local word to this AAT entry, one’s record can connect to other records that use the words ‘crash’ or ‘mull’ or even ‘boekbindersgaas’ to describe the same thing. Doing this matching at scale leads to what is called the ‘alignment’ of different vocabularies.
The Linked Conservation Data (LCD) repository is a location where data about the alignment of conservation vocabularies is stored so that they may be used to create Linked Data for conservation treatment records and documentation created by conservators, conservation scientists, and others who preserve cultural heritage.
Content submitted to the repository falls under copyright law. Contributions to the repository should be provided without any constraints to allow the material submitted to be reused without any license fees. The proposed license for contributions without constraints to the repository is explained in Creative Commons Zero. Optionally, constraints outlined in the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License are allowed. Specifying these constraints should be done following the instructions in section Constraints of use and it should include a sentence with the exact attribution text, if required.
This document provides guidance for contributing data about conservation vocabularies to the Linked Conservation Data repository. The guidelines proposed in this document do not depend on the scale of the vocabularies. They apply to short word-lists used in local databases and also to full hierarchical thesauri of thousands of terms.
This document also serves as an introduction to the reasons for using a repository with aligned vocabularies. It will explain the benefits of maintaining and using consistent internal terminology in one's lab. It will also provide both non-technical and technical steps to contributing to the repository.
This document is targeted primarily at conservators who are responsible for maintaining vocabularies regardless of scale. It is also targeted at conservators who are interested in establishing consistent use of terminology in their documentation system. In practical terms this means conservators who use lookup fields or check-boxes in databases or similar tools.
Various steps of the processes explained in this document require different levels of technical expertise.
Compiling lists of the words used in one’s conservation documentation and matching those vocabularies to other vocabularies can be done by any conservator, technician or intern, although often this work is best done by the staff who are responsible for creating the documentation. Similarly, defining new terms where matches do not exist in other vocabularies is also achievable by conservation staff.
Encoding this data in specific file formats and validating and submitting the data to the repository may require greater technical expertise. Undertaking processes on a large scale may also require technical expertise to achieve automation. Such expertise in cultural organisations can be found in departments supporting digital infrastructure, collection metadata departments or academic departments in computer and information science. These guidelines are meant to be followed by conservators. The guidelines offer ‘exit points’ where required steps which pose technical challenges can be undertaken by the repository maintainers.
This document should be read sequentially if read for the first time. The technical complexity and the ideas addressed increase after each section. The document can then be used as a reference document.
The document outlines the types of vocabularies considered in LCD. It then provides guidelines for using the LCD repository as a host for conservation vocabularies whose content is not offered online as structured or Linked Data. This typically includes vocabularies published as text documents either in print or PDF files. The document continues with guidelines on how to provide data about the relationships of concepts and terms from different vocabularies to the LCD repository. It concludes with presenting example files that are expected in the LCD repository. The document is meant to be read sequentially when read for the first time. It can then be used as a reference document thereafter.