For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Cataloging in the Museum CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Cataloging Museum Objects Patricia Harpring Managing Editor, Getty Vocabulary Program Revised June 2009 © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Museum Data: CCO and Big CDWA © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 1 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. CCO/CDWA Audience • CCO is intended for a diverse audience: VR collections, museums, archives, others who catalog cultural heritage • CCO includes minimum descriptive data used by both museums and VR collections Images from metmuseum.org © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO/CDWA Audience • Many (most) issues are the same for museums and VR collections Display vs. Indexing Subject indexing Creators, unknown creators Etc. Images from metmuseum.org © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 2 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. CCO/CDWA Audience • VR collection places more emphasis on cataloging larger numbers of works and works from various repositories • VR collection needs more discussion re. relationships to and among images © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO/CDWA Audience • Museums are typically cataloging fewer works, all from their own collections • Museums place less emphasis than VR collections on complex relationships between works and images, and between images and other images © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 3 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. CCO/CDWA Audience • Museums’ whole/part relationships between works are driven by curatorial or conservation requirements, acquisition or loan issues, and storage of works in physical groups © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO/CDWA Audience • VR collection’s arrangement of whole/part relationships between works is driven by the users’ need to retrieve • E.g., if same artist did both the lid and the vessel, why make two separate records? © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 4 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. CCO/CDWA Audience • Museums place more emphasis on certain details of recording and cataloging Recording information derived from direct examination of original works, e.g., measuring • While VR collections are transcribing information from secondary sources © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO/CDWA Audience • No administrative data in CCO No Provenance, Conservation History, Exhibition History, etc. For these, see big CDWA © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 5 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Registrar has traditionally applied standards and rules: local or based on CDWA CCO provides prescriptive rules on the core set of descriptive data Example: Work Type Adding a work type or object name is a common practice when registrars create new object records in a system, for the primary reason stated in CCO: to “identify the kind of work or works being described” and to “establish the logical focus of the catalog record” (CCO, p. 48). © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO & CDWA provide guidance for consistency regarding Curatorial Scholarship, which is a primary activity of museums © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 6 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Collection Information Professionals: The Keepers and Protectors of All Collection Data Whereas registrars are responsible for documentation and cataloging, collection information professionals are responsible for managing, preserving, and often for disseminating, this information. Additionally, they play a crucial role in ensuring that access to information about works of art is accomplished in an accurate, standards-compliant, consistent way. Ideally record the data once, and repurpose it for record keeping, hardcopy publications, online presentations of information © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Issues for Museums in CCO/CDWA • Issues are sometimes related to significant differences between CCO/CDWA and local practice • Local practice may be less than ideal, may be driven by technical limitations • But often differences are reconcilable, simply a question of parsing existing data in CCO/CDWA-compliant form rather than editing the existing data © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 7 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Name of repository Required in CCO/CDWA Not necessary as a separate field in your local system (unless you have two sites) Construct the value when you port data in CCO/ CDWA-compliant form CCO compliant: Current Location: J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, California, USA) ID:90.PA.20 © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. CCO/CDWA compliant: Creator display: unknown Parisian Creator display: unknown Parisian 15th century Local preference for names of “unknowns” Creating CCO/CDWA compliant data from existing data Museum may port data into CCO/CDWA-compliant form by programming algorithms Also, keep in mind that such issues are superficial; the more important issues re. compliance concern which data you store in which fields, etc. Record data once, port it to multiple formats as necessary © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 8 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Local preference for names of “unknowns” Unknown created from culture field CCO preference: unknown Italian Museum may port data into CCO-compliant form by programming algorithms Also, keep in mind that such issues are superficial; the more important issues re. compliance concern which data you store in which fields, etc. Record data once, port it to multiple formats as necessary © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Measurements Instructions re. how to measure How to display and index • Suggested fields and rules in CCO but expanded version in CDWA © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 9 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Museum must have rules for measuring the work, left and bottom for rectangles, largest dimensions for irregular shapes, diameter for circular objects, circumference of vessels, how to take “sight measurements,” measure plate and sheet, how to round numerical values, etc. Covered by CCO, expanded in big CDWA VR collection is generally transcribing information CCO and CDWA also explain how to express dimensions in a work record, which is applicable After Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Flemish 1599- 1641), By Thomas Sabaudus. Christie's Sales online. Works of Art from the to both VR colls. and Museums Collection of S.A.R. La Principessa Reale Maria Gabriella Di Savoia. Sale 7526. 27 Jun 2009. London, King Street © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Creating CCO/CDWA compliant data from existing data CCO preference: Measurements display: 33.5 (height) x 12.5 cm (diameter at shoulders) (13 3/16 x 4 15/16 inches) Value: 33.5 Unit: cm Type: height Extent: shoulders Value: 12.5 Unit: cm Type: diameter © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 10 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. Record once, publish many times Creating print and online versions of the data © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Record once, publish many times Creating print and online versions of the data © J. Paul Getty Trust, author: Patricia Harpring. Do not distribute or reproduce. Patricia Harpring, June 2009 CCO, CDWA, and CDWA Lite for Museums page 11 © 2009 J. Paul Getty Trust For educational purposes only. Do not distribute. See CDWA also • Users can look to big CDWA for additional information in categories covered in CCO • Users can also look to big CDWA for further categories not covered in CCO because they are not descriptive data or not considered “core” for CCO • E.g., Provenance, Conservation history, Context • CDWA includes definition, discussion,