ARCH IVAL INFORMATICS NEWSLETTER
Part 1 of Archival Informatics
ISSN 0892-2179 SPRING, 1988 Volume 2, ~ 1
No matter how efficient information scientists EXCITING HERESIES make their full-text searches. methods to reduce the number of documents thot must be seorched, and the parts of those documents that require The RIAO-88 meeting provided an occasion to "reading", will play on increosingly important observe thot archivists and curators hove role in full-text retrieval systems. Archivists knowledges and skills desparately needed by have long employed inferential logic based on designers of image and full-text retrieval the1r unoorstanding of the Wf!tl in which records systems. Two particularly exciting heresies are created and the structural means by which occured to me. which I had an opportunity to documents carry their messages, to find records explore with information retrieval experts at with contents relevant to a user query. Now that meeting (reported further on p.6). information retrieval specialists are looking for As image retrieval systems become more just the methods long emp loyed by archivists. widely available, they are being examined by Archives and museums have direct contri users who are no longer just "wowed" by the butions to moke to the design of im~ and full appearance of an image on ascreen. These users text systems if they can formal1ze their are asking how images can be indexed. using knowledge of image and dooument access methods. langu~ and symbols, so that the desired image This is aworthy challenge, I think. can be obtai ned. And they are demandi ng system capabilities to manipulate and analyse the images once they are found. TABLE OF CONTENTS Curators have a knowledge, recently formalized in such products as ICONCLASS and the Art & Articles: Architecture Thesaurus, of the differences Advanced Revelation: AReview 2 between SUbject and object indexing and they J. Penny Small
have experience I based on years of work with art Machine Reed6b 1e Views 5 historians, archeologists, natural historians and Thomas E. Brown engineers, of the tools required to ~ an image. Equally exciting is the realization by full-text Regular Features: oocument retrIeval systems desIgners that they Conferences need to limit searches for texts toport10ns of the ARLIS/NA 7 full archive of office documentation, and that the RIAO-88 8 methods for limiting searches involve exploiting calendar. 2nd & 3rd Quarter 10 what they only vaguely understand about the In-Box 11 sources of documents, the systems out of which Letters to the Editor 15 they are generated, and the genre of the record. News 18 These concepts of provenance, ser1es and form Projects & Proposals 19 of-materIal or oocument type are the stacie in Software 21 trade of archivists. Standards 22 Technical Report Summary 24 (statues and gems) to Roman sarcophagi with ADVANCED REVELATION nearly forty figures. For microcomputers these AREVIEW capabilities appeared only in Revelation (Rev) by Cosmos. now known as Revelation TechnolOJies Inc.. Rev also came with a full by Jocelyn Penny Small, Director. U.S.center. pre.Jramming language. lexicon Icone.Jraphicum Mythole.Jiae CI6SSicae, While Iat times keenly felt the absence of the Rutgers University, College Avenue campus. New bookcase of manuals-to-the-manual available Brunswick NJ 08903 (201) 932-7404 for dBase and RBase. I was very satisfied with the results. So why have I switched to AREV? "It was the best of pre.Jrams, it was the worst of Why have I tortured myself with near paralytic pre.Jrams, it was the age of transparent winOOws. trances over the keyboard? (They changed All it was the age of opaque documentation... ·in the keyboard commands in AREV , and prOVided no short ....some of [theJ noisiest authorities table of equivalents to Rev.) Three things insisted on it bei ng received for ~ or for evi 1. spurred me on: windows. being able to use lower in the super lative degree of comparison on ly." case at the system prompt (TCl for Terminal Advanced Revelation (AREV) provokes extreme Control leve]). and. of course, the compulsive reactions, and, frequently, simultaneously. The need to upgrade. The second release should "power" of the pre.Jram is extraordinary; appear this April. figuring out how to tap that power is also extraordinary. Windows Windows! Wh~t ~ wondorous tool they are. And The US liMe Project & Revelation how marvelously they are implemented in AREV. I shall illustrate its features by describing First, some background on my use of them. The their implementation in the Computer-Index of US liMe has two core files. Objects which have Classical Iconography at the U.S. Center of the 2 Lexicon lconographicum Mythologiae Classicae scenes, and nearly thirty satellite files • which: ( 1) control the words used. and (2) check their (US L1MC).1 The US L1MC ,as part of an spelling. (3) classify the words (Carnelian is a international project to publish a multi-volume kind of Chalcedony which is aQuart used for pictorial dictionary of classical mythology, is Gemstones, which are obviously Stone; Myron is responsible for classical objects (ca.800 B.C Greek and a Scu Iptor ), and A.DAOO). with mythole.Jical representations. in (4) index data from the core files for fast American collections. Unlike most computerized retrieval and relating files. projects, its cataloguing goes below the level of Whether or not a particular satelltte We does the title for each scene to record the individual more than one task depends on its data. figures and elements (animals. plants, Furthermore. certain statellite files are linked archftecture. etc.). their types. and what the to other satellite files. Thus Biblie.Jraphy checks figures are wearing or holding (attributes). all bibliographic references no matter where From the outset it was obvious that a relational they appear, while Cultures vets the entries for database program with fully searchable, variable Culture in both the Objects and the Artists file. length I and repeating fields was necessary. The verification of fields in both Rev and AREV Objects currently range from single figures 1s very simple: put the name of the ver1f1cat10n file in the input pattern for the prompt for a field. and the prOJram automatically checks the 1The US LIMC is part of the library at Rutgers Univer5ity. ond is very pleosed to ocknowledge not on ly the support of the University, but also 2 Satellite describes the relative position of the that of the National EnOOwment for the file to the Core files. "Classification", however. Humanities. Research Tools Div. and the David is preferred to "authority" to describe these and lucille Packard Foundation. The US L1MC files, since they are more complex in what they welcomes inquiries. record and what they do.
2 Archival Informatics Newsletter vo1.2.-1 entry against the record identifier of the separate, but linked, screens necessary for the verification file. In Rev, by indexing two core files. One window, or rather template (inverting) the data from fields in Objects and 1n AREV terms, suffices for each file, All, Scenes into Sl:ltellite files, I could retrieve 011 nonetheless, is not sweetness and light. The objects made of stone or all scenses from the imp lementation of "paging" is jerky, annoy'ing, Trojan cycle, but the process could be and absurd in this set up, cumbersome. Now the program "knows" and keeps track of the linkages. Pop-ups & options Pop-ups are winOOws that appear generally AS88rch when you press F2 at pre-defined fields. While For a real example, anarcheologist (from they can perform a number of tasks,l use them
Brown University I naturally) I wanted all vases to prov1de llsts of record IDs from small in American collections decorated by the classification files. Techniques and Materials, Providence Painter. We started in the Artists' with a little over a hundred entries, are feasible, file by first accessing the cross-referenced but Artists, with nearly two thousand, is easier index to the individuol word3 in the record to consult vi'J the reloted templates. Thus F2 in identifiers (Artist Name) to find all painters the Techniques field brings up the list of all with Providence in their name. From the 11st of possible techniques, and all the data enterer has four painters we chose the desired Providence to 00 is press the enter key at the appropriate Painter. Merely by pushing Alt-F5 we switched value. Since this field is repeating (multi to the Object me with all of the objects by the valued), more than one technique can be chosen Providence Painter saved in a list, available for at one time with F9 saving the selections and browsing backwards and forwards. When a automatically entering them into the field. particular object was of interest, Alt-F6 Pop-ups are also used extensively by AREV; brought up the Scenes on the object, with Alt-F8 HELP lists of your last ona hundred commands at taking us to further information about the Title the TCl prompt, an ASCII chart, etc.. The system in the Titles file and another Alt-F6 for a "second also allows you at any poinno ~to TCl, and copy" of Scenes with only that Title and then Alt thence to DOS. It always remembers where you F5 for a second copy of Objects for more detailed are, and moves recursively back to the starting information about a particular object. Hypertext point. I should a Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives &; Museum Informatics 3 one point with Rev, Iwas reluctant to reduce the references, it still has no entry for "back up". number of fields in Objects by increasing the use When Iasked why. Technical Support told me of the classification files. Because Rev did not that since "back up" was not one of their automatically keep track of the cob-web like commands, there was obviously no need for an connections between my thirty or so files, it was index entry. With that approach, imagine the difficult to remember how to traverse them at Quality of the documentation. With the the tlme of searching. Now, with the smooth complexity of the program added10 the sheer movement between fi les (temp lates) I I have no innocence of what documentation is about, such hesitatlons since actual use is much easier. imagine scrambling through the four main I should odd thot the mointemmce of the manuals. With the changes between actual connections and the addition of new ones has implementation and the ear lier dates for printing become a minor nightmare. Aplain, run-of the manuals, think of the results. But do not the-mill pop-up requires the classification file, even contemplate the fact that since Release E, its template, the pop-up description stored in with which Istarted, every single set of the pop-up file, and the call from the prompt for instructions for installation has had errors. Nor the field in the template. should you forget that help is not at the corner bookstore or your local computer center. If the Shortcomings program is so goOO, and it is, why the poor Unlike Cicero, Icannot pass over the fact that a documentation? number of bUgs are due to too early a release and But, let us return to what else AREV does do. It 8 striking lack of communication between can be either menu (very easy to set up) or different ~ms of progrmnmers or, worse yet, command driven or acombination of both. Since no attempt at the reconciliation of obviously all fields are variab le in length, on ly disp lay changing methocJs. 3 For instance, the routine lengths are defined. In templates, the text either that imports Rev screen builds acall to a record tickertapes for single line displays, or scrolls. in the HELP f11e that ends with the same field You never run out of space. It has 8 mechanism name rather than the prompt number for the for doing forms, reports, or- whatever you call template, as used for all new templates. Petty those things that are not columnar lists. Alas, its complaint perhaps, but the absence of all help previous forms, whlle not splendiferous, are and the concurrent creation of four hundred some better than the current incarnation, which does odd unreachab le entries in the HELP file were no not adjust dynamically for changing amounts of joy to discover and amend. Some routines, such data, such as the 'brief' statue or the "long as "preserved fields" in the window design, are winded" sarcophagus. You can, however, print not merely half-baked, but oownr1ght raw. The any templote (screen) with 1:1 mere Alt-P. (The intricacy of "paint", their program for designing Rev program GFORM is on the compatibility entry and record templates. can be gauged by the disk). Anew and improved report program is fact that each prompt has forty-three promised. parameters which can (they don't have to be) filled in, and some of these, like pattern Ull1ities matching, allow for multiple entries. Pattern AREV acknowledges that no one is perfect, and matching can be customized to do just about any has prOVided aset of powerful routines for global pattern you can possibly dream up. updates. An intermediate transaction file is built All of which brings usto OOoumentation! Six, so you can compare the original with the changed count them six, manuals with the poorest version. One can also do global swapping of indexing seen this side of the mainframe. Not strings within afield as in word processing; but, only does the overall Index leave out maIn of course, it took me an afternoon to figure out how it worked. Moreover, much, like the pop ups and the related windows. it is fully automated 3 A Wise and willy book on software engineering so that no programming is needed. The scholar, is: frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man- montb, Boston, Addison-Wesley. 1982 Archival Informatics Newsletter vo1.2.·. if lik.e me, can twiddle to his heart's content until he gets it just right or righter. I have not used their network. version, which is MACHINE READABLE VIEWS supposed to be excellent. Nor h~e I hll1 any reason to implement any of their provisions for Thomas E. Brown security. You can define separate users with any National Archives &. Records Administration kind of ideosyncraUc access you might want. The Washinaton. DC 20408 system automatically resizes f1les for optimum retrieval -- a real plus-- but, at the same time. the data now resides in only two files that can For the past several months, I have spent a lot grow to enormous proportions. My scenes files of energy as chair of the program committee of are each over 1800K. You must use a DOS the forthcoming conference of the International program that can split fi las between disks. The Association for Social SCience Information program now comes on ten diskettes -- some of service and Technology (I-ASSIST). As anyone which you won't need forever (tutorial. Rev who has ever served on a program committee can compatibility), but do not even kid yourself that attest,it is both time consuming and rewarding. AREV can be used solely on afloppy system. The rewards stem primarily from the Whlle I have focussed on the new things that opportunity to see the cutting edge of one's AREV ooes, that Rev does not, it should be noted profession. Because I-ASSIST brings together that both programs use dictionaries to hold field professionals interested in the acquisition, definitions. "Symbolic fields" are R/Basic administration, use and preservation of programs up to 32K. I use them for plucking the computer data files, the last three months have city, museum. and inventory number from the offered me insights into the evolving interests of Objects file into the scenes f1le. Such "joins" are colleagues concerned with the archival not real joins. That is, no transfer of data need administration of electronic records. occur (it can, if you want iO, and no third file is The proposals and final program reflect the built (a great saving of time and space). These grOWing role of microprocessors or personal fields con also be used to do colcuhrtions and computers in this, as in other spheres of special formatting, like underlining. contemporary society. One session is devoted exclusively to the analysis and dissemination of The Bottom line data using the microcomputer and several If you are already usi ng Rev, shou1dyou sessions dealing with archival administration or upgrade? Emphatically yes. But emphatically use of computerized data include at least one steel yourself for an excruciating experience. If paper on the applicabllity of microcomputers. In you are us'lng something else or not using one series of papers ~ressing the use of anything else, should you buy AREV? Absolutely. information on Individuals in modeling for social Buy AREV at the cheapest price (list $950) you policy analysis, two authors propose tutorials on ~n find. Then invest your savings in the long how to use microcomputers to analyze microdata dlstance telephone calls to Technical Support for policy analysis. and/or one of the independent consulting firms. The I-ASSIST prCYJram also reflects the growth (I do both). AREV really will do what you want it of automated cartographic systems. Whi Ie to do (all mortals are reasonab1e, you are ~~aphic information has long been digttized, mortal, therefore... ) Getting there, however 10 thlS decade such systems have been riding the is half the agony. • tidal wave of the advances in computer graphics. Over the past few years. as developments have taken place tn the CAD/CAM (Computer Assisted J.c.p Design/ Computer Assisted ManUfacturing) arena. the I-ASSIST program has routinely included one or two papers on cartographic systems. The upcoming conference will devote two full sessions to digitized cartographic Spriol. 1988 Copyright by Archives & Museum Informatics systemsl The first set of papers will focus on libraries are generally providing their users managing these systems. One paper will examine with raw data, primarily on magnetic tape, and the technical problems associated with their with the necessary documentation to interpret creation and maintenance and the need for that raw data. Certainly, providing the data on standards: The second paper w111 discuss one magnetic tape really does not help the PC user. such standard emerging within Canada, the Map So what are the alternatives? What should be the and Chart Digital Interchange Format (l'1ACDIF), standard for reference service in the future? a telecommunications standard for cart~raphic What level of service should our profession information. The last paper outlines acurrent prOVide? These questions remain unanswered. system within the U.S. Government, rind relmes The discussion of CrJrtogrrlphic output as tI the previous observations to aspecific mapping reference vehicle is one solution to this broader system. and increasingly complex problem which we have The second session on automated cartographic not really addressed or crlequately defined. systems was designed to be provocative. Each The I-ASSIST program reflects a new emphasis paper will discuss whether reference services within the profession on reference service. If we should provide data to the user in cart~raphic divide the functions of data archives and data form rather than (as is now customary) as raw libraries into three broad categories, acquisition data or crude tabulations. Michal Peleg of the (records scheduling and disposition, appraisal, Social Science Data Archive of Hebrew solicitation policies and accessioning); University in Jerusalem argued in her proposal administration (description, cataloguing, that: "clear and meaningful representation of data technical documentation standards. and Is rI universrll requirement from every scientist, preservmion); and reference (dissemination student, and executive. Quantitative data in the technology. confidentiality. and end-user needs), social sciences is usually presented by tables of conference proposals relating to acquisition were rates, frequencies or percentages, whlle the nearly non-existent. Proposals relating to more advanced data presentations involve actual administration of computer files within a statistical charts. However, geographically repository continued to hold their own. The oriented data needs more sophfsHcated growth area, to the point of eclipsing acquisition, presentation techniques. Otherwise the spatial was reference service. And this emphasis on character of the data is largely obscured. The reference seemingly concentrated on the map then provides the necessary medium for research use of the information. What does this presenting areal relationships of spatial data, say about our profession? which are so essential in comparative and It may reflect the growing influence within 1 regional studies. Until the eighties, most of the ASSIST of librarirlns who rlre realiZing the statisHcal maps were manually produced by a importance of machine-readable records and who few geographers and large agencies. Now, due to have traditionally had a strong interest in the decreased cost of computers and graphic reference service. Originally, I-ASSIST peripherals, as well as the availability of attracted archivists with responsibility for sophisticated graphics software, this challenge is automated records within atraditional archives, within the reach of public use in a large number and on ly later, data librarians who usually found of app lications." As a result, she argues, data themselves adm'inistering acollection of repositories that have data sets with spatial machine-readable data files outside of traditional characteristics such as census samples and small libraries. As a result of the recent influx of area statististics, household surveys, professionals working in traditional libraries, ~ernment macro-data and election results management issues may have been overshadowed provide their users with informrltion in by reference service. The profession continues cartographic form. to expand to include new people with new Peleg's proposal to use cart~raphic emphases. presentation of archival information relates to a far broader question. Today I archives and data 6 Archival Informatics Newsletter voI.2.-. discussion led off by commentaries from Pat CONFERENCES Mo1holt and Jim Anderson, the audience debated the desirability of complex representation Art libraries Society/North America , versus simpler, more easily implemented approaches and the barriers to national implementation of hierarchical facetted indexing The (ARLIS/NA) annual meeting in Dallas, vocabu laries. February 4-11 , reflected the growing interest among visual resources managers in automated The meeting provided an opportunity for ARLIS systems, indexing, intellectual access members to experience some systems used or approaches, and the MARC-VM format. developed by their colleagues. Jeanne Keefe Watkinson presented the RPI online public access Helene Roberts, Curator of Visual COllections at catalog to 65,000 slides. Joy Alexander andJo Harvard, sounded what was to be a theme of the Schaeffer discussed the'lr experiences automating meeting in the first session when she criticised slide collections with standard commercial existing reference works that provided sUbject packages (DBase and SMART). The organizers access to visual collect1ons for not being provided an afternoon to see other ARLlS/NA sufficiently complex, consistent or convenient. member developed systems, inclUding a DBase Her use and explication of ICONCLASS suggested auction cata1a,) file by Beth Dinaff (Dallas that it is asystem that is sufficiently complex to Museum of Art), an index to the illustrations in represent works of art, but she presented no architectural books by Henry Pisciotta (CMU), assessment of its consistency nor any mechanism and a PC/Mac Videodisc driver from the by which it might prove more convenient. Jack University of Iowa. The mooesty of these Robertson also addressed the convanience of art implementations was contrasted with extravagant reference data in his well thought out guicE1ines claims made by computer systems vendors at for reviewers of reference books, but a Infomart ("the world's largest computer presentation by Marshalllapidus on the merger showroom") where Ivisited CPT's full text of RILA and the RAA which followed revealed the retrieval, IBM's Infowindows ,and ImlJJB Sets nature of these problems in all their concrete showing off their use of Pictureware on an ATT ugliness. The attempt by the Getty Trust and system, and was im pressed on ly by the hype. CNRS to merge the two principal bibliographic resources in the Held is more than three years in One late night session was designed to capture the making. and will represent at best a h1gh-technologyimag1nat10ns. Karl M111er compromise. (U.T.Austin) led off with an enlightening history of the CRT and the potential of electronic imaging. Compromise was the subject of the next session Madeline Nilsen conducted atour of projects that IattenlEd on indexing and search strategy using combine image and text ranging from Athena, the the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (MT). Amy N1J Khan, and Boston Architecture Projects at Lucker presented the use of the MT in the MIT through museum videodiscs to such AVIADOR project at Columbia University in commercial efforts as the Chadwycl<-Healey which on ly single terms were assigned. publications on American architecture. Mertly simplifying the indexing but 1eoolng to false Snow presented the U.C. Museum (Berkeley) drops and sacrif1cing the hierarchical structure prototype digitizing system described by Howard of the vocabulary. Bethany Mendenall examined Besser in a recent issue of Museum Studies the implementation of expressions. or sets of MT Journal. For me, the most exciting event of the terms in specific systems, and Murray conference was the final fifteen minute talk by Waddington presented the way in which the MT Marc Rorvig of Project ICON, at the University has agreed to be represented in MARC using of Texas. Austin. Dr, Rorvig introduced the indexing strings which can be sets of expressions concept of 6 visual thesaurus - Images Hnked in (see also Standards. p23). Inaspirited hierarchies with defined relatlons- as a means Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives It Museum Informatics 7 of conducting a "wordless search" and of discouraged by the evidence that in hypermedia achieving greater consistency between indexers. as in full text. our prototypes are far from He and his colleagues are constructing such a implementation and scaling up to production visual thesaurus for NASA. Rorvig suooested that exposes unresolved problems. it be exam 1ned in conj unction with the M T, bringing the meeting around in adelicious full Karen Spark-Jones. in her keynote address. circle. Whereas we began by struggling with characterized the problems as inherent in how to use language to index images and make heterogeneity: them available to new users from diverse - We have objects of different kinds. Can they disciplines. we ended by using images to index be characterized in common w'(fo{s? concepts in disciplines whose language was alien - We have data with different levels of to us! Although what he clescribed was far from granularity. Can they be connected? the image recognition capab111ty some in the - We have different functional uses. Can they audience mistook it for. it was elegant for the be supported by the same representation? simple use it made of human intelligence to - We have different relevance criteria. Are transport the user from one image, through a the apposite? series of related images. to the one needed. Insum I she asked, can we go beyond agJregat1ve systems to integrative ones? RIAO 88: Conference on ·User-Oriented. Aweek of looking at large screens, many Content-Based, Text and Image Handling- windows, bright color im~ and fUll-texts, large optical stores and attractive user interfaces, could not obscure some very serious problems. We still can't capture very large Over 700 people from 21 countries gathered at amounts of text or images from paper formats M.I.T. March 21-24. for RIAO-88, aconference very efficiently. Automatic analysis indexing and organized by the centre des Hautes Etudes analysis are still in their infancy and Internationales d'informatlque Dooumentaire. content/structure relationships are not very (Late In the week. Idiscovered that RIAO stood well understood. Freeing users to wander gets for Recherche d'information Assistee par them lost quickly. and even when theyfind i'Ordinateur ). things. we have too few useful analytical tools attached to retrieval systems to meet users' Participants were, like myself, largely first needs. Iadmit acertain production oriented bias t1me attendees drawn to the conference oy itS emphasis on hypermedia and full-text. Nor were in stating that Ifound the crude tricks more we disappointed, although the organization of exciting than the subtle methods. sessions left much to be desired. The 75 twenty minute papers were delivered much as they read Among the practical, implemented. concepts in the three volume conference proceedings. with was Lee Hollaar's Utah Retrieval System which no opportunity for real discussion. and the keeps an index of words in full-text documents demonstrations of systems (almost all only. It ooesn't identify relative position or prototypes) were often hard to looate. specific 100ation, but string searches are fast Nevertheless. the meeting displayed the range of enough. once the document is located, to execute activity in these areas by researchers from the such sophisticated search, and the overhead for simple indexes is only 15~. Yaacov Choeka Artificial Intelligence. Information Retrieval, reported on acrude method of identifying and Image Access commun1t1es. The emphas1s on phrases, and names, for indexing. which simply demonstrab Ie systems made the reports broader locates all occurences of 2,3,4 and 5 word than those ~t slmllar ACM and IEEE sesslons, and together wlth aten page limit, this made the phroses in millions of words of text. and papers seem somewhat superficial. I left excited provides an i~dexer with all phrases occuring by many of the ideas being explored but more than xtlmes. The resulting lists identified 8 Archival Informatics Newsletter yoJ.2,*1 potential indexing phrases with a precision structure in which a record consists of numerous greater (often much greater) that 50%. Susanne parenthetical declarations of the form Humphrey reported on the National Library of element=value, that enabled them to describe all Medicine's automation-assisted indexing, and numerous parts of complex mosaics, emphasizing the useful assistance over any including non-hierarchiCal relations (all tied to notion of automatic indexing. NLM and OGLC . a videOOisc of mosaies).Honeywell-Bull disp layed "orienting" interfaces that locate "hits" displayed MISTRAln1J the software at the heart of on tables of contents of large texts so that the IMAGO 21M, the system used to manage the user can judge their likely interest based on French national radio and television archives. location and clustering of occurences. GECI International exhibited Hyperdocn" its mult1media OOcumentation package in Cfor PC's This is not to suggest that the prototypes lacked with CD-ROM and the centre de Recherche en useful ideas. Howard Besser showed off some Informatique de Nancy displayed avisual very nice and functional image analysis routines thesaurus of mycol~ knowledge called developed at the University of california at MycomoUen, to be marketted in July by Berkeley and applied to art, architecture and FUTUR*VISION. geography.. Andreas Dangel displayed an automatic oocument structure analyser that Anumber of US academic off shoot products exploited simple rules about basic structural were shown as well. Robert Kraft showed off the components of documents to locate areas of $25 CD-ROM with full-text of the Bible in documents with specific information contents Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and English as well as (cf., addressee of letter). And Y. Tanaka of much other material for septuagint Studies being Hokkaido University discussed acreative distributed by the University of Pennsylvania. approach to cooing characters that can't be OCR'd C Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives. Museum Informatics 9 CONFERENCE CALENDAR Resources and Technical Services Division, New 2nd & 3rd Quarters 1988 Orleans, [RTSD, 50 East Huron St., Chicago,lL 60611;312~944-6780] April 13-17 Society of Architectural ,I, Historians, Annual Meeting, Chicago [SAH, 1232 July 19-23 Microcomputer Applications in I Pine St.. Philadelphia, PA, 19107] Visual Resource Collections [F ine Arts Contin. Education, FlneArts Building 2.4, Univ. of Apr1l 29-30 Library Descriptive Standards: Texas, Austin, Texas 78712; 512-471-8862] An Introduction for Archivists, aworkshop sponsored by the Society of American Archivists July 20-23 National Association of [ in Chicago [600 S. Federal St., Suite 504, Government Archives and Records t, Chicago, tL 60605; 312-922-0140] Also to be Administrators (NAeARA) Annual meeting, I offered in Atlanta, prior to the SAA annual mtg. Annapolis, MD [Stephen Cooper, Maryland State ArchiVes, 350 Rowe Blvd., Annapolis, MD 21401;301-974-3914] May 15-18 Artificial Intelligence, the ASIS mid-year conference, Ann Arbor, MI [American August 21-28 Preservation of Black & White Society for Information Science, 1424 16th Photogn'lphs, two workshops [Rochester Institute St. ,NW, Washington, DC 20036] of Technology, College of Graphics Arts & Photography, Tech. Ed. center, One Lomb May 22-26 Basic Videodisc Design & Memorial Drive. Rochester, NY 14623; 716 Production Workshop sponsored by the Nebraska 475-2757). "Identifying image forming li Videodisc Group in Lincoln,NE. [P.O.Box 83111 , processes, hand11ng & stor1ng" August 21-25; Uncoln, NE 68501; 402-472-3611]. Also "Copying and dupl1cating", August 26-28. I offered July 17-21. ,.~ September 11-17 American Association for 'I ~ 1 May 23-24 "The Coming Age of Electronic State and Local History, Annual Meeting, Text"; Study Group on the Structure of Electronic Rochester NY [AASLH, 172 second Ave. , North, Text (SGSET) , Conference, Carnegie Mellon Suite 100, Nashville. TN, 37201] University, Pittsburgh. PA [Peter Capell. 412 268-8599] september 21-24 Second Annual Museum Documentation Association Conference, May 26-29, IASSIST Annual Conference "Terminology for Museum Documentation", "Public Data: Use it or Lose it", Washington DC. cambridge, UK [MDA. 347 Cherry Hinton Rd., [Pat Doyle, Mathematica Policy Research Inc., Cambridge, CB 1-4DH, England] 600 Maryland Ave. SW, Suite 550, Washington, DC 20024] September 29-OCtober 2 Society of American Archivists, Annual Meeting, AtlantaeA June 3-7 American Association of Museums, [SAA, 600 S. F~ral St.,Suite 504, Chi~, IL Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA [AAM, 1225 Eye 60605] St., NW, Washington, DC 20005] CALL FOR PAPERS June 6-10 Association of canadian Archivists, Proposals for papers, accompanied by Annual Meeting, Windsor Ont. abstrocts, will be occepled until Apri130, for [secretariat, Learned Societies Conf. 1988, the Museum Computer Network Annual Room 2129 W'indsor Hall North, Windsor, N9B Conference, to be held in Los Angeles, OCtober 3P4,CANADA;519-253-4232] 26-28. Contact David Bearman, Program Coordinator, 5600 Northumberland S1., July 8 Management Strategies for Disaster Pittsburgh. PA 15217 (412-421-4638) Preparedness, aworkshop sponsored by ALA 10 Archival Informatics Newsletter i I•• problems associated with degradation of "safety" negatiVes dating from 1925-55, and an ~unt IN-BOX . of the various manufacturing processes Involved, the report summarises the technical literature REPORTS on cellulose acetate film stability and factors in . its degradation. Survey findings are summarised Bilfinger, Monica; Buyssens, Danielle; Jost, and some conclusions are drawn leading to , tentati\'e recommendations. Excellent Kar 1j Meles, Brigitte &. Zurcher, Ronald; Vers bibliographies and notch reference identification une oangue de donnees culturelles et artlstlgues information are appended. suisse: Conception de l'informatisation et de l'echange de donnees dans le domaine des beaux Our Memory at Risk: Preserving New York's arts etdes arts appliQUes, Berne, Academie Unigue Research Resources. Areport and suisse des sciences humaines (ASSH), 1987. Recommendations to the Citizens of New York by 117pp. also publ1shed in German the New York Document Conservation Advisory This Swiss working group report on the Council. [Albany] ,1988. 56pp. possibility and value of information exchange in Building on the foundation ora 1984 report the arts (commissioned in February 1986 and "Towards a Usable Past", which stated that com p1etOO in June 1987) sounds many themes "preservation may be regarded as the most that are famillar from simllar "towards national important historical records Issue in New York systems" studles elsewhere. Whlle 11s today" J this report advances a practical program conclusions are. appropriately. tied to Swiss of action at all levels and by an astonishing range circumstances, the systematic manner in which of tactics. Handsomely and clearly presented, it addresses options, and its application of rigid without Jargon or hyperbole, its first criteria of technical and political recommendat1on is to "complete theinitfa1 implementability, should be emulated. As is Historical Documents Inventory project, often the result ofthe best of such efforts, the maintain an automated statewide database for recommendations are modest and focus on historical records collections and repository common standards for description and the acquisition pol1cies, and provide for updating the exp10ration of specific cooperative ventures, system'" ranging from information sharing consortia to shared videodiscs. They emphasize the need for Vislon 2000: ACooperatlye 10ng-ranlE plan for lmprovlng locallnventory control, and creating a the Moine State library, Mojne Historic union list over the allure of an on line database, and the desirability of shared vocabularies over Preservation Commission. Maine Arts interactive authority control. [Available from Commission and Malne State Museum, [Augusta Mrs. Anne Christine Voge1-CloHu, Swiss ME, 1987, 80pp). Academy of Humanities, Hirscheograben 11. Aneeds assessment and cooperative planning P.O.Box 2523, CH-300 1Bern, Switzerland] oocument for cultural agencies In Maine, similar in intent to the 1984 plan developed in New York Horvath, DaVid; The Acetate Negative Survey: State, but without the synthesis. Here each Finol Report, Louisville, KY, University of agency has daveloped plans to extend its current Louisv'l11e, 1987, 91pp. $10.00 from the functions, and juxtaposed them, but there is no Photographic Archives, U.Louisv1l1e, 40292 strateqy. Iwas struck by the absence of any The final report of this National Museum Act attention to documentation issues, and by the funded project will be of great value to those who claim that "no cost" is assoclated wlth the have responsibility for historical collections of objective of the museum to "pursue an aggressive cellulose ocetate film (many of whom prooram of collections management" or the partlcipated in the survey that informed the objective of the library to study "information Follow'lng a history of the acquisition and data handllng within state study). detanoo government". Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives It Museum Informatics 11 SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUES Hum~nistisk.e D&a, 3-87 is aspecial issue devoted to optical media projects. English AlCARC: Bulletin of the Archives and language articles include areport on "The BBC Advanced Interactive Video and the Domesday Documentation Centers for Modern and Discs" by Phyllis Gave, "The North West Contemporary Art, (#25 & 26, 1986/2 Educational Computing Project" by Ian Robertson 1987/1); ; Special issue on "Computers and the and Mike Picciotto, "Recording the Italian Future of Art Research: Visions, Problems, Cultural Heritage" by Ernesto Barto1ozzi, and "A Projects", 61 pp. CD-ROM based Geographic Information System" This issue of AICARC brings together the views by Erling Maartmann-Moe. Bartolozzi presents of leading figures in art documentation from the plans for implementing avariety of optical throughout ~he world, in aseries of tantalizing, media systems through the Italian National short but stlmulating essays on where we are and L1brary Holding System and National are go1ng, extencl1ng and 1n some cases rev1st1ng Photographic Archives and discusses systems AICARC issues 21/22 "Automation takes architecture. Maartmann-Moe defines the Command" published following the 2nd functional requirements of Geographical International conference on Automatic Data Information Systems in place at the Norwegian Processing of Art History held in Pisa in the fall Computing Center and explores the implications of 1984. Hans-Jorg Heusser, the issue editor, of having such systems on CD-ROM. remarks that this issue is amore sober, if not somber, view as aconsequence of the hard work Library Hi Tech #20 (Winter 1987) was of the past several years. While Jacques devoted tO$Pace planning for cultural Thuillier, Oskar Batchmann, Vi1 Mirimanov and repositories and the implications of information Dimitri Pertsev still herald anticipated technologies. Its ahot topic; Museum News revolutions in historiography and art critical metnoos, most autnors are caut10us, choos1ng promises to focus on architecture in general in its May/June issue. The Society of American like salome SChmid-Isler to assess experts ' Archivists is seeking an author for aSpecHil systems or like Helene Roberts to explore the publiootion on the topic. And I recently received requirements of research databases, without areview copy of Richard W. Boss' Information predicting that they w"ill radically alter theory. several contributions focus on the critical need Iechno1ooies and SDace Planning for Libraries for more data in automated form, expressed by and Information Centers (Boston, G.K.Hall, Karl Jost .in his article "Quantity is Quality". and 1987. 116p. + index). reflected 10 projects reported by Laura Corti, Boss begins by discussing all the relevant Margrethe F1oryan-Pedersen, and others. A hardware and communication systems and their useful contribution by Brigitte Me1es describes space, power and communications requirements. the "Databases available to Art Historians Chapters are cl3voted to automated library Today", and suooests how much useful research (cataloging and circulation) systems. we could be dOing with automated assistance microform, optical media, telefacsimile and a1rea Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives It Museum Informatics 13 Veccia, Susan; "Full- Text dilemmas for Genoways, Hugh H.; Jones, Clyde & R033011mo, ~rchers and 3Ystems: The Washington Post Olga L. ,ads.; Mammal Collection Management. Online", Database, April 1988, vol.ll #2, Lubbock,TX, Texas Tech University Press, 1987 p.13-32 219pp. Ninel different versions of the Washington Post These papers, given at aworkshop held in are available electronically in as many different August 1985, are arranged in three sections. searching systems. Understanding what works, The first three papers define the Importance of and doesn't and why is critical to anyone mammal collections, the need for their designing full-text systems; incidentally the management, and the history of mammals article may help librarians and archivists make preservation. Seven papers in the second section decisions about what formats to keep newspapers are devoted to computerization issues. The final In. section reports on mammal collections in Australla, Hungary, Spaln, Lattn Amerlca anO NEWSLETTERS India. Terry Yates introduction to the value of collections as evidence is auseful contribution to Quite a number of the "Newsletters" I receive the literature of museoloqy and as valid for other are serially issued promotional literature, disciplines as for mammal collectors. Apaper by available free from commercial firms. Some of Daniel F. Williams on computer hardware these contain quite valuable information on a selection is surprisingly fresh (given its age), regUlar basis. Among those received recently but won't remain valid much longer. Afew are: useful insights about aspects of mammal FAX Facts [Paper Manufacturers Com pany •Office collections and their automation can be salVaged Products DIvIsIon, 24 TrIangle Park DrIve, from the reports on systems Implemented at the Cincinnati OH 45246] Carnegie Museum, the National l'1useum of Government PUbl1cations News [Bernan Natural History, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Associates, 4611-F Assembly Dr., Lanham, MD Field Museum and Texas Tech, but the guIf 20706-4391]. New In 1988; the first three between 1983/84 and the present is only issues include quite useful general information. magnified as we read of batch query systems, as well as order forms. punched card entry and mini-computers MAPS Newsletter [Mid-Atlantic Preservation operati~g with 64K. service, Lehigh University Mountaintop Campus, Bethlehem, PA 18015] MAPS is amicrofilming Johnson, Susan; "The Birth of an Information service organization, and its newsletter includes System", Information Retrieval & library a "Technicallssues" section of general interest to Automation, Oct 1987. preservation microfi 1m iog officers. The LSS Is characteristic of the large, The Scanner: ABarcode Newsletter [WKM/NIDI, integroted, multi-agency, on-line informotion 88 Westpark Rd. , Dayton, OH 45459] systems that are proving so problematic to archivists; the history of its resign and Other "Newsletters" issued by commercial implementation is, therefore, of special interest. firms that often include information of general interest are user group publications. Among Moffett, Jonathan, "Com puting in the Department those recently received are: of Antiquities of the Ashmolean Museum", Up & Running [Questor Systems, 1005 E. Archeolooical Compyting Newsletter, # 13, Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 911 06]; MUSE Dec.1987, p.l 5-20 News [Julian Humphreys,Corson Hall, Cornell This account by the Chairman of the Museums' Computing Group of pr~ress in his own University. Ithaca, NY 14853]; Socjety of institution details what an alert professional can American Archivists NOT IS Users Group 00 with few resources. NewslettedPatty Cloud, Northwestern UnIversIty Archives, UnIversIty L1brary 1935 14 Archival Informatics Newsletter vo1.2.·1 Sheridan Rd., EV8nston,IL. 60208]; Network LETTERS TO THE ED ITOR ~ (Conservation Information Network, 4503 Glencoe Ave., Marina del Rey, CA 90292] , MARCON recent ly announced avai labi 1ity of it up-load and Ted Purr [AIRS Inc., 335 Paint Branch Dr., down-load local systems software and the College Park, MD 20742] writes: compilation of an [-mail directory for conservation professionals. "The review of MARCON by David Bearman in the Winter 1987 issue of Archival Informatics ~ NOT E: suspended pub1ication at the end of Newsletter reminded ine of the Broadway play 1987 (vol.5). According to editor Joseph Raben, Fiddler on the Roof. Remember the lines, it will resume in ~mother form soon. "On the one hand... , on the other hand... "? That was David's review. There were some lines we EPHEMERA: wou ldlike to shout at the wor ld; other we wou ld just as soon mumble. Of course MARCON is not a Directory of Federal Historical Programs and play; users intend it for serious busi ness. Overall we feel that David was objective, as Actjvities, Washington DC, Society for History in usual. We have produced. and are continually the Federal Government, American Historical upgrading. aproduct that, as another reviewer, Association & National Coordinating Committee also from Pittsburoh, said. everything". for the Promotion of History. 1987. 84pp. "ooes From 0 softwore developer's point of view the Alist of phone numbers and addresses for an truth of that overstatement is not that it ooes it astonishingly diverse set of people and projects. all but that it tries to do so many things that sometimes, in layperson's terms, it trips. 1988 Com Duter salary Survey and career AI RS spends about half its customer support Planning Guire, 14pp. (free from Source EDP time teaching users the ins and outs of database offices throughout the U.S, and in Ontario] is a management as applied to archives and records useful source of job descriptions and salary data management. The other half is spent by our for employers. users teaching us - either about deficiences or about things they would like, We look on this as a partnership and we thank our many friends. Archival Informatics Newsletter is aQuarterly David's review contained some helpful publication of Archives & Museum Informatics, suggestions. His point obout the help screen ond 5600 Northumberland St., Pittsburgh, PA manual "mess" mne by an external firm has been 15217; (412-421-4638). It is edited by noted and new help screens and awhole new David Bearman, whose authorship can be manual are now being shipped. Ahelpful options presumed for all items otherwise not attributed. bar will appear in afuture version of MARCON. Subscription to the Archival Informatics David did make one error. He states that in data Newsletter (ISSN 0892-2179) is available for entry the screen mas not default to the next . $24.00 per year pre-paid, US acxJressed, blank template. If you pressShift-Fl0("instead $30.00 pre-paid foreign addresses, and $40.00 of f 10), the data is entered and another blank p.a. billed. Acombined subscription to both the template appears. Newsletter and acompanion Quarterly The comments about reports were accurate and Dub 1ication. the Archival Informatics Technical this difficult module has been corrected. AIRS Reports (155N 0694-0266) is cvailllble for suggests that sometime soon Dcvid might write a $160.00 p.a. in the US; $180 abroad; and will review just of report generators, comparing be b1lJed at no extra Charge. Ind1vldual technical severlll packl:lges. Our mlljor report adv~nce is to reports are available at $W45, each preoaid. give users two options: ( 1)to print reports as record display appears online and (2) to allow users to "paint" reports with row and column Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives It Museum Infor••tics 15 formatting. Sorting is possible for multi-valued continue to keep our ears to the ground and our fields, but, ~ noted, intro, not inter collection. eyes peeled for any indication that our selected The global edit feature was in the version David preservation format may be replaced. For the reviewed but is not in the current version now first few months, we felt certain that we would . being shipped., There are some problems of both end up using some disc technology for capture, design and consistency in this feature which we preservation and use. However, acombination of are addressing. these strategies now seems the most prudent Finally, we expect to have a MARC interface course to follow. (both for entering and receiving records) in beta 35mm. archival fllm has been demonstrated to test1ng by the summer, We w1llintroduce 1t at be extremely stab1e when stored under proper the SAA this fall in Atlanta. We w1ll also offer conditions and systematically monitored; some workshops in Atlanta prior to the annual claiming as much as 500 years life. While I meeting. One w111 be for basic MARCON, and the would be happy with 300 or 400 years, the other for using the U.S. MARC:AMC interfr£e. point is likely to be moot over those time frames. 35mm is also the dominant microformat from MICROFORM YS. OPTICAL DISC preservation filming, with 16mm adistant and C.lee Jones, previously of the Council on fading second. Microfiche, while lacking the Library Resources, and now President of the archival life of roll film ( 100 vs. 300-500 Mid-Atlantic Preservation service [ MAPS, years), 1s becoming increasIngly popular with Lehigh Univ. Mountaintop campus, 118 Research librarians wanting to provide the most useful Drive, Bldg.J, Rm.120, Bethlehem, PA 18015], formats for their readers. Consequently they writes: now believe that original filming has to be done "At least for bl~k and white and some mono in a fiche format or 16mm and jacket loaded. and duotone print media, the question is not These issues forced us to consider what if any whether or not to chose optical media for storage alternatives there might be for prcx1uction of ond ~s, but whether or not it meets the needs fiche from roll film. Cl~rly, there are of users. There is an option that allows the relatively inexpensive machines coming on the capture of print media in more traditlonal market soon that allow us to prcx1uce fiche on micro-optical (read microfiim) format with 1OSmm roll film, but there are then some very conversion to whatever user format may be serious material handling problems on the required. While the technique is not widely library end of the system. known, it is used by some of the l8r~ micro The composing/reducing camera (CRC), as and disc-publishers. noted above, is capable of handling a range of Aunit known as acomposing/ reduction camera ·Inputs and creating outputs in avariety of will take any of a variety of input streams, formats as well. With the professional pressure including 8nal~ or digital or fi 1m, and create to continue to explore "electronic/ optical" outputs in an equally broad spectrum of formats. preservation techniques and the material The price tog runs to $2 million and the units handling problems of 105mm roll fiche, the CRC are custom built for the needs of the owner and starts to become an appealing alternative to the his services. limits of one content capture format or another. MAPS as you may know was brought into being It is likely that MAPS will put together a with capital support from the EXXON Education requirement statement for such a machine along Foundation for the express purpose of developing the following 11nes. The primary input stream is and demonstrating preservation content capture likely to be 35mm fllm, probably S8C.ond strategies in the not-for-profit environment. generation in order to preserve the integrity of The first step was to evaluate options and after the archive master (the original camera film). looking at the various options inclUding optical However, we are also look1ng at capturing some media, it became clear that the most rational images in adigital form prior to laying the image current appr~h was microfilm, adecision that on film, so we would also like the option of an caught many, including EXXON, by surprise. We analog or digital input stream. This particular 16 Archival Informatics Newsletter vo1.2.·1 feature would be a deduct alternative should it 75 years or so. Should that occur I MAPS would drive the price higher than resources available, be interested in using the CRC in a color mode. The output streams required from 35mm roll So far as I know, there is nothing like that in film will include microfiche, 16mm roll film existence yet." (another ear ly deduct alternative feature), a CD-ROM format (specific technical SM Automation Program Officer requirements to be determ ined later), and Donn Neal [Executive Director, Society of preservotion photocopy output (yes, even 0 AmeriCl'Jn Archivists, 6005. Federal St., Suite paper option). The engine of this camera is a 504, Chicago, IL 60605], writes: high speed minicomputer which may soon shrink "As you may know, Lisa Weber has accepted a to asuper micro. Despite that sort of shrinkage, position with NHPRC and will be leaving SAA in the cost is very high. The first copy will be in Mid-May. While we are celebrating with her the $2 million range and the second and third in about her new opportunity, we are also aware of the $1 mill ion range. the gap that her departure wi11leave in the SAA With costs like this, it is not possible for the office: we will be without a Program Officer to present MAPS to justify such an investment. direct the remaining months of our NEH However, if the Commission on Preservation and Automation Project, to perform staff duties in Access is successful in raising $200 million in the areas of automation, and to help SAA plan for funds to do the content capture work in libraries, the future of this very important initiative. orchives ond museums, then we ore tolldng ot 0 10m writing to ytou for assistonce in much expanded MAPS (with four or five other identifying candidates for this position ... regional sites) or several partners interested in The NEH grant runs through september of the same business (preferably not-for-profit 1989. Our first choice, of course, would be to partners in order to keep the tax situation as have someone simply pick up where Lisa is simple as possible) or a combination of these leaving off and see the project through to two. The latter is the more likely circumstance. completion while helping us to chart our future In any case, a CRC will be more re~H1y course. We realize, though, that few people may amortized if it can be operated two or more shifts be willing to pull up stakes and move to Chicago per day, in which case, it will be capab Ie of for this purpose, so we are quite open to other, handling the output of many 35mm cameras. creative solutions. These might include having All of this just to indicate that there are some someone on leave from a regular position, the options thot we expect to come on streom in the· negJ1.iotion of ot leost 50:8 releosed time so lhot near future that do not force one to decide on a SM duties might be shared with regular ones, a limited archival life in order to provide the short commute, and others ..." power and flexibility of the user format. It is poss'ible to have a comb'ination of stable film for Museum Computer Network Director archival purposes, even archival photocopy for In asimilar vein, Suzunnah Fabing [Chair. hands on use, and/or CD-ROM for a "high tech" MCN Executive Director selection Committee, retrieval and access format. Another virtue of National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 20565] such a combination system is that one does not could have written me that MCN is seeking a full have to consider double capture if both archival time executive director, willing to secure film and CD-ROM is required for material. funding for MCN projects, double membership The issue of color will be addressed next year and expand member services. The MCN experimentolly on ly after the CRC (ond its office will move to the incumbents' locotton. A mates) are in operation. There is some light at dedicated individual is sought, especially since the end of the color microform (archival) tunnel the salary is only $30K and the future of the job with one group claiming far more stable G1es. depends upon the success of the appointee. Actually, if the dyes were archival for as much Applications accepted to mid-May. Interviews to as 100 years, they would probably be deemed an be held in Pittsburgh following MM meeting. archival product with aplan to duplicate every Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives at Museum Informatics 17 LIABILITY FOR ELECTRONIC NEWS MISlNfORMAliON The New York Times reported on March 6 that NARA CHALLENGE Terry Dean Rogan, arrested five times in Texas Don Wilson was sworn in as archivist of the and Michigan for crimes he did not commit. was United States on December 4. I look forward to awarded $55,000 from the City of Los Angeles seeing how he will act on the challenge he which had failed to remove his name from their Identified in his confirmation hearings on police files where it had fed into anational crime OCtober 20. when he said: network. The network is aCalifornia based "The ability toadminister public records in the version of the New York State system that Alan computer aoe depends on the ability of the Kowlowitz has appraised, and which he has National Archives to adept to the changes. It must written up for the f~1l1966 Archiv~l assume anat10na11eadersh'Ip pos1t10n. Old Informatics Technical Report. At $55K ashot, archival theories and practices must be we had better devise !J)Od retention and disposal reexam 1ned and adapted to present day needs. The procedures! passive role of archivists waiting for old files of paper to be transferred by reluctant agencies NEWS FROM STATE ARCHIVES must be replaced by active participation in The NAGARA Clearinghouse reports that the records management. " Delaware State Office of Information Systems in funding aMachine-Readable records appraisal planning project. Hawaii's new archivist Jolyn ADVICE FROM NARA G. Tamura is exploring automation to improve As if in response, NARA has announced the records management. Mississippi has received a avallaO'll1ty of two free 1nformat1on ~I 18 Archival Informatics Newsletter 2. The guidelines are also intended to suggest PROJECTS ~ PROPOSALS . principles for the encoding of texts in the same format. 3. The guidelines should RlO/Stote Archlves Project a. define a recommended syntax for the The Research Libraries Group project in format, which the State Archives of Alabama, california, b. define a metalanguage for the description of Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and text encoding schemes, Wisconsin have been involved for the past three C. describe the new format and representative years has now completed Hs NHPRC and CLR eXisting schemes both in that meta-language and funded effort to incorporate state and local in prose. government records into the RLI Ndatabase, 4. The guidelines should propose sets of coding utilize RLI Nfor collections actions management, conventions suited for various applications. develop a list of functions terms to describe the 5. The gUidelines should include a minimal set activity of governmental agencies and test RUN of conventions for encoding new texts in the as a mechanism for assisting In appraisal of format. governmental records. RLG will submit a final 6. The guidelines are to be drafted by report on the three year project to the NHPRC in committees on June, along with aproposal for an even more a. text documentation ambitious second phase. b. text representation Having demonstrated the potential benefits of c. text interpretation and analysis RUN use by State archives, RLG Is expanding the d. metalanguage definition and description of project to Include the National Archives. and existing and proposed schemes, coordinated by a municipal archival agencies, and pursumg the steering committee of representatiVes of the development of form-of-materlal terminology principal sponsoring organizations. and authority lists to be used in conjunction with 7. Compatibility with existing standards will archival appraisal, description and retrieval. be maintained as far as possible. Their proposal is, in effect, to augment the 8, Anumber of large text archives have agreed database being built by the initial project in principle to support the guidelines in their participants and explore the full value of a function as an interchange tool. We encourage national system for archives. One would expect funding agencies to support development of tools the conclusions of this second phase, if funded, to to facilitate this interchange, determine not only the costs and benefits of such 9. Conversion of existing machine-readable exchanges but also prOVide the standards for data texts to the new format involves the translation beyond those being developed by Steve Henson for of their conventions into the systax of the new archival descriptive cataloging. In particular, format. No reqUirements will be made for the the project should test the viability of inter addition of information not already coded in the ~ernmental records strategies, such as those texts." proposed by the States and echoed recently by Based on this declaration from the planning Frank Evans at the National Archives. conference, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, Association for Computational SCholorly Text £ncoolng Linguisitcs and the Association for Literary and The NEH funded conference on the requirements Linguistic Computing, along with a large number of scholars for text encoding standards held at of other scholarly organizations, have proposed Vassar College in November (vol, 1, p.62), to the NEH 8 three year project to draft and produced the follOWing framework for the approve standards for: . preparation of text encoding guidelines: - documentation of encoded texts "1, The guidelines are intended to provide a - representation of texts at the standard format for data interchange in typograph1callevel I humanities research. Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives It Museum Informatics J9 --_. - representation of scholar ly analysis 20 Archival Informatics Newsletter vo1.2,·1 SOFTWARE BR IEFS COLLECTION MUSE MUSE is described by its creators, Julian M. Vernon Systems has annolmced several Humphreys and Barry Chernoff as a enhancements to its COLLECT ION system since the microcomputer collection management database initial september release. Among these are that system: It ~as ~veloped for ichthyological all data entry and query screens now have the coll~tlOns In whIch numerous specimens are l'bility to sel'rch via multiple cross reference acquIred from one locality, taxonomic indexes, group as well as individual permission hierarchies are important. and loan management sets may be defined, users may define their own and label generatlon are a must. It was deslgned data fields, and the extended ASCII chara::ter set to be used as amultiuser system with large is supported. The most extensive enhancement databases (up to 300 MB) on PC/AT or 286 class is a parameter driven procedural "harness" machines on asoftware foundation OOveloped by which permits a local definition of procedures Softcraft Inc. of Austin. TX. MUSE has been within a generaliZed framework. Specifically, around for quite awhile as a piece of consultware the procedural "harness" is said to permit an (essent1ally free but reQu1rlng the serv1ces of institution to: the creators to make it run). Now it has a 1) name a step (and make user notes) newsletter and a users group. Contact the 2) identify next step permitted 3) identify reversal steps permitted authors at Cornell University I Ithaca NY 14850. 4) check for presence or absence of data in a MARC Catalog Records Data Entry defined field (approval code or prior action) 5) check to assure integrity of transaction Ultracard/Marem and MITINET ImarCr" belong def~ne ge~erated to an unusual category of software that facilitates 6) forms by completion of step data entry of MARC records on PC's, but ooesn't 7) defme other actlOns required by taking step 8) do much with them (beyond printing cards) once update status and action history they are made. Intended to allow institutions to export records made off-line from the util1ties, .W~ile I haven't seen.this feature. the concept is sl~llar to the generahzed action processor I these packages both accommodate all the formats. defl.ned for CMASS (the Collections Management MITI NET /marCr" has substantial validation and ActlOn Support System) at the Smithsonian in "expert" help built in; Ultracard/marc doesn't. logical models developed in 1983/4 but never Contoct: implemented there. It could potentially resolve Ultracard/Marc: Small Library Computing Inc.. the prob lems created by local procedural 619 Mansfield Rd., Willow Grove, PA 19090 differences within categories of actions such as MITINET /marc: Information Transform Inc., loans, conservation treatment, or acquisition 502 LeonardSt., Madison, WI 53711 committee review and will definitely be worth examining closely. Artist AuthorUies wUh Images! Choowyck-Hooley Inc. has onnounced Willoughby Associatos publication of the New York Public Library Willoughby Associates announced the opening of Artists File on microfiche, with a name index to a new office, staffed by Jane Sunder land, Marcy be published in machine-readable form Reed. l'nd Lynn Rem ington l't 11 61 9 Ohio Ave. , (presumably on CD-ROM). Details about the Penthouse, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (213-444 dat~ to be cantai ned in the name index are not yet 8994). The ChiC89J office is still reached at oval lab 16: I 5U5pect that Chadwick- Heoley Inc. could be mfluenced by interested potential 312-866-7996. buyers if there was an expressed need for an artists name authority f11e and/or for incorporation of existing artist name files. Spring. 1988 Copyright by Archives. Museum Informatics 21 STANDARDS If this proposal is adopted by MARBI and the Library of Congress. its initial implementation would be as avariant or LCSH and other pre FACETTED CLASSIFICATION IN MARC coordinated subject headings, but its At its meeting in December, MARBI, the implications are far more revolutionary. Such a adVisory committee for the MARC formats, gave a system w,ould have the benefit of preserving generally favorable hearing to one of the most far h1erarchlCal placement of each term, thus in reaching proposals it has ev'er received, The principle permitting narrowest possible facet proposal, by the Art and Architecture Thesaurus assignment but searches for terms on parent (AAT), and supported by the National Library of values, Thus, if I were interested in churches. Medicine, permits catalogers to assign post and aterm "cathedrals" or "cloisters" was a coordinated 1ndexing terms in place of pre facet of some assigned indexing terms, a coordinated Library of Congress SUbject Headings retrieval system could be implemented that In MARC records, searched down the hierarchy from churches, In this way, a cataloger using the AAT, could lrent1f1ed these narrower terms, and retrieved construct an "expression" (to use some examples them together with my request for churches, proposed by Murray Waddington), like without rendundant term assignment on the part 'construct1vlst arch1tecture' ,or 'GothIc of the indexer/cataloger, The potential rose windows' ,or 'Embossed vellum "explosion" of terms provides many more access bookbindings' and modify them by a points for users and, if implemented for both geographical modifier and achronological "preferred" and "non-preferred" uses, obviates modifier in the equivalent of an LCSH headIng, the need to standardize language in index term while keeping each term component In its assignment or in query, appropriate facet or h1erarchy. Acomplete While this proposal st111 has to be approved, string, as these headings are called, might be: the issues it raises for archives and museums Modernist Industrial bUl1dlngs - France are sufficiently important to warrant - Paris. Adaptive reuse. introoucing the possibility here. Comments and or suggestions can be addressed to Toni Petersen at Gothic Churches - Italy. Tympana. the AAT, Phyllis Bruns at the Library of Photographs - 20th century, Congress, or Lisa Weber at SM. The, proposed format of such 8 field (tenatfvely GEOGRAPHICAL AUTHORITIES des1gnated as a65x field in MARC) would be: 65X The J. Paul Getty Trust Art History Indicator 1undefined I~formation Program Vocabulary Control Group, 2 thesaurus 1d, d1rectoo by Eleanor Fink, is exploring the $a focus term sources of machine-readable geographical $b other term authority files in order to build on some existing $c facet/hierarchy designation database the internat10nal, h1stor1cal and mult1 $y chronological term disciplinary vocabulary for access to humanistic $2 geographical term ~ta, ,A, recently completed internal study' has $2 thesaurus cooo 1OOnt1f1OO some plausible bases for such an effort and negotiations are underway to acquire the Aproposed coding pattern would be: rights to an appropriate foundation. Because no SaScSbScSbScS2 extant databases have the historical cross but the "focus" term need not occupy the first references required, or systematically locate position, as in the example of "Gothic churches" such humanities goo-concepts as linguistic where churches is the focus. Another plausi bIe regions, ethnic groups, literary/mythologic pattern would draw terminology from avariety locations. bullding names etc" much elaboration of thesauri, and would be coded: of this basic file w'ill be requ'ired for it to serve $a$o$2$b$c$2$y$c$2$z$c$2 all the needs or art and cultural research. 22 Arch1val Informat1cs Newsletter vo1.2 6 1 ARCHIVES . LIBRARIES The Society of American Archivists has begun The Linked Systems Prolect: ANetworking Tool offering aworkshop on "L ibrary Descriptive for L1brarles, Dubl1n OH, OCLC. 1988 Is a Standards: An Introduction for Archivists". The comp lete history, technical introduction , and workshop is intended to teach archivists about applications/impl1cations analysis of the LSP the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules and Library protocols (which support computer to computer of COngress Subject Headings, issues they are communication of MARC data) by leaders in the confronting as they implement the MARC:AMC field. It should be considered must reading for format In library utl11tles. The workshop w1ll oe library and archives technical services offered for the first time April 29-30 in personnel. Chicago, and again in Atlanta in september in conj unction with the SM Annual meeting. SM is PUBLISHING & DOCUMENT MARK-UP still holding its "Understanding the MARC AMC Although they've been aval1able for some time, Format" workshops, w'lth the next ones I just received copies of three very useful texts scheduled for June 2-3 at Old Sturbridge on SGML by Joan M. Smith. These studies were Village.MA and June 20- 21 in Jackson I conducted for the British Library and publ1shed Mississippi. as British National Bibliography Reports #22, 26,8<27. They hove the titles: The Stondard RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS GeneraJ1zed Markup Language and Related Issues Avery useful list of all the rare books and (#22); The Standard Generalized Markup manuscrIpts standards and how to get them has Language (SGML): Guidelines for Editors and been published by John B. Thomas III. see his "Standards and Guidelines Prepared by the Rare Publishers (#26); The Standard Generalized Books and Manuscripts section of the Association Markup Language (SGMU: Guidelines for of COllege and Research Libraries", Rare Books Authors (#27) and Manuscripts Librarianship, vo1.2#2, Fall The Guideline volumes are appropriately nitty 1987p.109-112. gritty, with all the necessary detalls and lists. The issues volume covers the gamut from history (with adistinctly British slant), through the GOVERNMENT RECORDS participants, and on to impl1catlons. All three NICLOG, the Notionollnformation Center for are recommended reading. Local Government Records, is now available to11 free on 1-800-284-5456 to give tldvice on It is increasingly clear that SGML will become standard methods for manaoing historical an Important constItuent of all electronic texts records. NICLOO will also respond to mail sent to NICLOG, AASLH, 172 second Ave. North, Suite and that as text creators and users, it wHl be 102, Noshville, TN 37201 useful to understand them even though the actual embeckiing of codes will. increasingly, be oone without direct knowledge of the writer, as It is in HISTORY MUSEUMS such word-processing packages as SoftQuad The "Common Agenda" project, including its task Publishing Softwar8rM by SoftQuad Inc. [720 force on documenting collections which is developing approaches to definition of standards SpadinaAve.. Toronto, eanem. M5S-2T9]. for historical collections is seeking input from the profession. Write of call the project Those interested in the latest updates should coordinator, Mary Alexander, at the National consider attending MarkUp' 88, the sixth Museum of American History, 1'16B-66, International Conference and Showcase on SGML Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20560, sponsored Oy the Graphics Com munlcaUons (202) 357-4573 or contact the documentation Association in Ottowa, May 24-26. COntact: GCA, tosk. group choi r mon, James Blockaby, curator of 1730 North Lynn 51. 5ulte 604, Arl1ngton, VA the Mercer and Fonthill Museums. The project 22209-2085 or call (703-841-8160), will report on its progress at the AAM meeting. Spri ng, 1988 Copyright by Archives & Museum Informatics 23 DIRECTORY OF SOFTWARE FOR ARCH IVES & MUSEUMS Archival Informatics Technical Reoort Vo1.2, # I, Spring 1988 The Directory of Software for Archives and Museums is organized in three sections with a short introduction to the role of such a directory and its use. The first section describes systems, in alphabetical order by system name, according to general characteristics such as hardware and software environment, size limits, standards, integration, support, utilities and types of applications supported based on information provided by vendors. Pricing and acquisition options, including availability of consultative support and customization, are described. Section two compares systems by application and sub-systems or utilities. Application comparisons tables are presented for: cataloging & description. collections management, conservation management, education & interactive training, events management, exhibits management, information retrieval. membership/development & fund raising, publications management. records scheduling & disposition, space management. travelling exhibits and volunteer management. Utility or sub-systems tables are presented for: authority control, data dictionary, data entry, graphics, help, query & retrieval, report writer, screen writer, security and text editing/word processing. Each table compares data supported by the system, its functions and features of the application. Section three indexes the systems by vendor name, hardware and operating systems. A bibliography cites selected published reviews of the products and discussions of systems selection processes. Individual copies of technical reports are available from Archives & Museum Informatics. 5600 Northumberland St., Plttsburah PA I,ZI7 for USS-t'.prepaid. SUbscriptions to the Technical Report and four issues of the Archival Informatics Newsletter are US$160 p.a.. for addresses in the U,S, & Canada, USS180 p.a, overseas. 24 Arch1val InformaUcs Newsletter