[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Geographic creators

Thu Feb 25 10:20:33 EST 2021

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your reply! So yes, I have thought about creating both a
separate agent record just for e.g. Austin just so catalogers would be able
to add the creator of Austin because, as all users in this group know, only
agents can be creators in ASpace. I don't like this for many reasons:

It would violate cataloging standards.

   - Every authority source I have ever seen (VIAF
   <http://viaf.org/viaf/157089669>, LNCAF
   <https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79007290.html>, FAST
   <http://fast.oclc.org/searchfast/?&limit=keywords&facet=all&query=Texas--Austin&sort=usage+desc&start=0#&single=fst01204313&fullview=simple&sep=click>,
   ...) considers Austin and its government a geographic term.
   - This is consistent with more elaborative cataloging standards that I
   have read, e.g. RDA which I quoted in my first email. I'm not a trained
   cataloger though, so if someone would like to correct me on ways of
   establishing a government of a geographic area as a corporate term in an
   authority list, please enlighten me.

It would wreak havoc on our taxonomy management.

   - This is particular to our institution, but I am the only one who
   enters subject/agent terms for our organization. This to ensure more
   consistent, standards-based use of terms, and so that we do not have e.g
   ten different ways of entering Hillary Clinton. If Austin changes its name
   to Keep Austin Weird, I only want to change it in one place, not both the
   agent and the subject record.

It would create a clickable wild west.

   - I'm not sure how much all staff and researchers make the distinction
   between Austin the government and Austin a geographic location.
   - So if someone is browsing around in the system and they want to get
   everything related to Austin, they might click on Austin the creator/agent,
   but miss out on all the resources that use the subject term. Or vice versa.
   Highly unsatisfying retrieval.

I am using Austin as the example, but my question can apply to any
government/geographic level (county, state, etc).

Thanks!
Olivia

On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 8:36 AM Bowers, Kate A. <kate_bowers at harvard.edu>
wrote:

> Can you explain more about "two Austins, one agent and one geographic
> subject, as it would violate cataloging standards, wreak havoc on our
> taxonomy management, and create a clickable wild west in ASpace."
>
>
> I find the LCSH/LCNAF practice of conflating a governing corporate body
> with a geographic area inherently illogical.  Instead of using the chosen
> name for the government, as an example “City of Boston” they use the same
> text as the geographical name. We’d never do this to other corporate
> bodies.
>
>
>
> Background, for the non-LCSH/LCNAF folk: LOC has a single geographical
> authority record and uses the same text for the governing body and the
> geographic area, and just codes it differently in the MARC resource records
> if the usage is as a corporate body “creator” field instead of a “subject”
> field.  Technically, AS cannot do this.
>
>
>
> Kate
>
>
>
> *Kate Bowers*
>
> Collections Services Archivist for Metadata, Systems, and Standards
>
> Harvard University Archives
>
> kate_bowers at harvard.edu
> <megan_sniffin-marinoff at harvard.edu>
>
> voice: (617) 998-5238
>
> fax: (617) 495-8011
>
> web: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:archives
>
> Twitter: @k8_bowers
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <
> archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> on behalf of
> Olivia S Solis <livsolis at utexas.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 24, 2021 6:32 PM
> *To:* Archivesspace Users Group <
> archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org>
> *Subject:* [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Geographic creators
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> I am wondering how some of you all may have handled documenting the
> creators of collections in ArchivesSpace when the creator is a geographic
> location, as in e.g. Austin (Tex.) — meaning its government.
>
>
>
> Some the standards I am looking at:
>
> RDA
>
> In its chapter on places, "The names of places are commonly used in the
> following ways: as the names of governments and communities that are not
> governments."
>
>
>
> Chapter on corporate bodies: "The conventional name of a government is the
> name of the area over which the government exercises jurisdiction" and then
> it refers you to the chapter on places.
>
>
>
> DACS
>
> Defines the creator as "identifies the corporate bodies, persons, and
> families associated with the creation, assembly, accumulation..."
>
>
>
> Our particular conundrum is that we export and publish EAD to a consortium
> that is going to begin imposing mandatory creators, and many of ours are
> technically geographic. However, perhaps some of you have also grappled
> with this hybrid geographic/corporate sense of a place term. Maybe some of
> you would also like to identify a creator when it is a government that
> presides over a geographic area because you would like Austin to be a nice
> clickable, identifiable creator *and* geographic subject.
>
>
>
> A dodge I have tried to recommend to processors is to identify the creator
> as the specific agency of the term that may have created the collection,
> e.g. Austin (Tex.). City Council. But sometimes we don't know the division
> that created the records and sometimes the broader city of Austin is really
> the creator. I certainly don't want to create two Austins, one agent and
> one geographic subject, as it would violate cataloging standards, wreak
> havoc on our taxonomy management, and create a clickable wild west in
> ASpace.
>
>
>
> Apologies if there is an obvious solution to this that I do not know about.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Olivia
>
>
>
> --
>
> Olivia Solis, MSIS
>
> Metadata Coordinator
>
> Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
>
> The University of Texas at Austin
>
> 2300 Red River St. Stop D1100
>
> Austin TX, 78712-1426
>
> (512) 232-8013
> _______________________________________________
> Archivesspace_Users_Group mailing list
> Archivesspace_Users_Group at lyralists.lyrasis.org
> http://lyralists.lyrasis.org/mailman/listinfo/archivesspace_users_group
>

-- 
Olivia Solis, MSIS
Metadata Coordinator
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
The University of Texas at Austin
2300 Red River St. Stop D1100
Austin TX, 78712-1426
(512) 232-8013
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lyralists.lyrasis.org/pipermail/archivesspace_users_group/attachments/20210225/c6a33412/attachment.html>