The Use and Development of Object Name Thesauri

Phil Carlisle

Overview

• Who am I?

• What do I do?

• What can I do for you

• What can you do for me?

Data Standards Unit

• Originally set up in 1996 by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME)

• Based at the NMR• Remit: To develop data standards for the

wider heritage sector including Museums, Libraries and Archives and Local Government Historic Environment Records

Standards

• RCHME/EH Oracle Databases– AMIE– LBS– RSM

• Thesauri/Controlled vocabularies

• Data Standards – MIDAS Heritage– WHS Data Standard

Controlling the wor(l)d!

• What is a thesaurus?– Hierarchical– Equivalent– Associative

• Enables the user to index at either a broad or narrow level

• Standardizes the vocabulary in use• Makes people feel safe (and sometimes very

frustrated!)• Enables interoperability between systems by

sharing common data

Standardizing the world

• All thesauri conform to British and International standards (BS5723 and ISO 2788)

• BS8723

• New ISO standard based on BS8723 in development

What’s available?

• Archaeological objects

• Monument Types

• Aircraft

• Maritime Craft

• Cargo

• Materials– Building Materials– British Museum Object Materials

What’s available? (2)

• Railway Object Names

• Waterways Object Names

• Evidence

• Events

• Time/Periods

Free!

• All our thesauri are freely available under licence.

• csv, SKOS

• Online browser

• Regular updates

• EHKOS

Archaeology Terminology Working Group

Set up to develop an object names thesaurus for the museum community

• Members from:– mda (now collections trust)– National Museums and Galleries of Wales– Biab– RCHME (now English Heritage)– HERs– Museum of London– British Museum

• Published in 1998 and online

Archaeological Objects Thesaurus

• Misnamed!• Over 2500 terms• Covers man-portable objects • Built in to the exeGesIS SDM HBSMR software• Currently under revision for proposed second edition.

– Pottery forms– Lithic implements

• Multilingual– Basis for the Tesauro Regionale Patrimonio (LAm Spanish from

Chile)– Dutch– German

Other working groups

• Railway terminology WG

• Waterways Thesaurus WG

• Data Standards Working Party which became the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage

• CIDOC Archaeological Sites WG

Future Work

• Re-establish the DSWP

• Develop multilingual thesauri

• Provide thesauri in BS8723 XML interchange format

Contacts

Phil Carlisle

Email: philip.carlisle@english-heritage.org.uk

Thesauri: http://thesaurus.english-heritage.org.uk

EHKOS: www.ehkos.org