Words And Their Meanings - Phil Carlisle
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Transcript of Words And Their Meanings - Phil Carlisle
Three nations separated by a common language: Building the Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage.
Presenter: Phil CarlisleEnglish Heritage
Date: Wednesday 21st, November 2012
TRACK 3: NEW FRONTIERS IN INFORMATION MANAGEMENTSESSION: WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS
Introduction
• About me• Background• The Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage• Scope of the project• Problems• One possible solution
Background
• 1908 - Establishment of the Royal Commissions on the Historical Monuments of England, and the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and Wales
• 1930s - Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division• 1980s - OS records cards transferred to
RCHME/RCAHMS/RCAHMW• 1990s - Computerization of OS record cards to
create the National Monument Records• 1995 – Publication of RCHME/EH thesauri• 1999 – RCHME/English Heritage Merger
Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage
• First conceived in 2000 (!) as the British and Irish Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage
• Intended to provide a common terminology for use in recording the built and buried heritage of the UK and Ireland
• RCHME/EH thesauri• RCAHMS wordlists• RCAHMW wordlist
Scope of the project
• Combine the terminologies relating to Monument Type in use by the 3 home nations’ National Monuments Records (NMRs)
• Extend vocabularies to include Welsh and Scots Gaelic
• Add other vocabularies to create Uber-thesaurus
• Include Periods • Add images• Add articles
Obstacles to collaboration
• Different perspectives on:– Regional terminology– Periods and dating
• Different recording practices– Phasing
• Standard Deviation– When is it okay to change a standard– When is a castle a concentric castle?
Aerial view of Mid Vord Cairn and Treawick Township. Copyright RCAHMS
Regional Terminology
• English – Plain An Gwarry - Cornish Amphitheatre– Wootton Hill Style Enclosure – a defended enclosure usually found in
Northamptonshire– Jube/cludgie/jakes/gong – toilets
• Scottish – Township - A group of dwellings, associated farm buildings and land, held by
two or more joint tenants usually working the land communally. Includes Clachan and Fermtoun
– Backlands - An area of open ground associated with a medieval urban dwelling.
– Blackhouse - A dwelling comprising byre, barn and living quarters, with walls consisting of inner and outer dry stone facings with an insulating turf core.
• Welsh– Llys - Regional court or administrative centre of a Welsh Prince.
– Ty Bach - A small building containing a lavatory. – Argae - a flood defence bank in the Upper Severn Valley
Case Study “VALLUM”
• Same word, different meanings– EH Term = VALLUM (BT RAMPART)
• “A flat bottomed ditch flanked by mounds running to the south of Hadrian's Wall for much of its length, marking the boundary of the military zone.”
– RCAHMS Term = VALLUM (BT BOUNDARY EARTHWORK)
• A boundary comprising a ditch and one or more earth banks. Usually associated with either a monastery or a Roman military installation.
– RCAHMW Term = Monastic Vallum USE RELIGIOUS HOUSE
Periods and dating
• ROMAN– England & Wales
• 43AD-410AD
– Scotland• No Roman Period
• MEDIEVAL– England
• 1066-1540 (dissolution of the monasteries)
– Wales• 1066-1536 (Act of Union between England and Wales)
– Scotland• 1058-1542 (Ascension to the throne of Mary Queen of Scots)
Recording Practice: Phasing a site
• EH - Record may have multiple periods involving multiple site types split into distinct phases
• RCAHMW – Multiple periods, multiple site types• RCAHMS - Only dating for Prehistoric, Roman
and 20th Century, multiple site types per record
Standard Deviation
• EH Thesaurus of Monument Types forms basis of both Scottish and Welsh Thesauri
• Scottish and Welsh ‘stripped back’– CASTLE but not CONCENTRIC CASTLE– PILLBOX but not PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/24)
• Hierarchical, Equivalent and Associative relationships have been altered and/or removed
RAF Aerial View of Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey. Copyright RCAHMW
Case Study “CASTLE”
• Welsh thesaurus stripped back to only include ‘CASTLE’
• Wales has the most and best examples of concentric castles in the UK including Beaumaris
• Conversely England has no true concentric castle
Solving the problem
• Move to a ‘concept’ based rather than ‘term’ based KOS
But…• Requirement for a collaborative editing tool• Requirement for a CHEAP editing tool• Needs to be future-proofed• Needs to be able to create/host/map
terminologies• Needs to be accessible remotely• Needs to allow different levels of access• Needs to allow multilingual capability
www.ehkos.org.uk
• Intended as a collaborative tool for use by the heritage community
• Intended to be ‘All-singing, all-dancing’ with more bells and whistles than are strictly necessary
• Phase 1 – completed in 2006• Developed in-house (EH) on a
shoe-string budget• Phase 1 – Live (ish) but bug-
tastic• Phase 2 – In the process of
being specified• Unlikely to be funded
internally
Editing
• Allows registered users to contribute
• 3 levels of access• Registered – submit
candidate concepts• Admin – manage KOS• Super User – manage
KOS and users
Mapping (and other fancy stuff coming soon hopefully)
• Tool enables terminologies to be imported and mapped to core vocabularies
• Manages controlled vocabularies of all types.– Including People and
Organisations• Able to create new
relationship types including CIDOC- CRM properties
• Export/import in various formats including BS8723, SKOS, csv etc.
Contact
Phil CarlisleData Standards Unit,English HeritageThe Engine HouseFire Fly AvenueSwindonSN2 2EHEmail: [email protected] Thesauri: http://thesaurus.english-heritage.org.uk/ EHKOS: http://www.ehkos.org.uk/RCAHMS Thesaurus: http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/RCAHMW Thesaurus: http://www.coflein.gov.uk/