here is a draft of a paper I am writing for information processing and
management which deals with transport information.... I'm curious
whether anyone will understand the idea of case I am using here, and
whether, with Occam's razor in hand, I can reduce the entities?



Stafford, an essay for ipm

Abstract

This paper takes a case from the landscape gallery to explore the
issues which might be of interest to the community of information
processing and management.  It explores the issues of identification
of places and the relationship between a place name, another place
name, what needs to be known about that place and how to relate it to
a more developed set of information.  It examines the issues of public
transport and walking and its contribution to sustainable development.
Though these are worked in the English context much of what is
considered was exported to North America and what were then the other
colonies, and something similar though different may be found anywhere
else almost in the world.


Convention:

In this paper I have used ipmcase to refer to the specific case of
issues or concepts which will be of interest to readers of ipm should
it be published, but even not this will remain a useful convention for
it may be replaced with any other;. I have used g&scase to refer to a
green and smart case, that which refers to walking and public
transport issues.  I have used lgcase to refer to landscape gallery
issues, that is those which refer to information in, about or of the
landscape gallery.  Using these three will allow for them easily to be
retrieved and later for visualisation to be explored.  These will be
used only for the first instance of a member of a class.

Stafford

This will be a concentrator (gscase) for ten by ten (gscase) for
Birmingham (lgcase) is now brought within the ten pounds region
(gscase) and Stafford is connectable (gscase) from I suspect
Leamington and Birmingham.  I haven't yet worked out which is best.

It is certainly in the area where deciding whether to spend a night or
not is worth it. (gscase and lgcase)

It is also a major rail interchange (gscase) in a way I don't yet
grasp for the lines to Stoke and Crewe divide.  This will also be a
concentrator and connector between Birmingham and Manchester and thus
important for both.

It might also be worth repeating the design principles and the methods
which we have to adopt to populate a new gallery (lgcase) of the
landscape gallery, for this is an area about which we know nothing and
so are starting from scratch.  We did know it was a fast train ride
from Euston with a good service but we rather thought the price ruled
it out for day journeys and planning for that amount of expense made
it equivalent to a weekend in Italy but now all that has changed.

Let us remind ourselves how to proceed.  Contact the tourism
information centre for brochures. (ipmcase)  In fact there is a degree
of push (ipmcase) for they advertise their wares with fill in cards as
a result for example of visiting the Peak District, of which
marginally, the county is a part.  The brochures contain the material
of that which has been paid, so while we might garner a little it
isn't enough to inspire.

Then we do Hudson's, organised by county, so Staffordshire is
identified, and fairly central is Stafford but again they are paying.

Then the NT handbook with its map, without rail identifiers but we do
know Stafford now.  We also by now know that Lichfield is also
reachable from Birmingham for map in the OAG guide tells us that, and
so too is Rugeley.  We also know that local connections among these
stations is likely to be moderate.

The English Heritage annual also has no railways on its maps but we
now know the place names well enough.  Next comes the Good Gardens
Guide with county maps though also too many small domestic modern
gardens with are not really landscape, more flower arranging.  Next
comes the yellow book which is even more flower arranging but at least
we will by now recognise the important ones.

Pevsner for Staffordshire will be a big read for not an awful lot for
there is no alternative but to read the whole thinf, though someone
has to do it.  The balance of importance of one church arch for a ten
mile walk depends on much else.

Then there are the ancients.  Mee's King's England too is organised
alphabetically, with a map, roads even then, and tucked away in a
corner an index with grid referencing, another index for names which
are not those of his key organisers, and places.  So many of the
landscape moments will be well hidden under the name of an obscure village.

A visit to my local public library, no where near Stafford, gives me
Palliser (1976) (ipmcase) and Greenslade (1984).  One is called
landscape, the other history but contain much the same stuff.

Daniels will give us Repton and Turner will give us Brown but with
place names we might not be able to find anywhere else.  At least
Daniels has OS grid references (ipmcase).

The Dorling Kindersley Gardens is in alphabetical order  (ipmcase) so
you have to read the whole thing though there is a county index
(ipmcase).  The problem throughout is that organisation by county
(ipmcase) doesn't tell me which is much better reached by
Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury and has nothing to do with Stafford, or
other combinations I haven't yet identified.

Simon Jenkins' Houses is in county order but with rudimentary mapping,
and so too is his Churches.  These might give us something, if only
that he doesn't connect and all his columns in the Evening Standard
support motorism? (gscase)

Now we can turn to the guide books.  Michelin has a map with a visual
index (ipmcase) to the book, still the best.  But thin and for
international tourists.  We can though confirm the high points, or
some of them.

Cadogan has rudimentary mapping and "Staffordshire stretching
uneventfully north of Birmingham wont be top of any visitor's list of
places to go in England" shows the danger of these things.  It tells
us nothing.   Stafford is not even in the Rough Guide.

When we look at the Landmark catalogue we have a rush of enthusiasm,
but we must be reminded also to look at Johannsen and some other resources.

We might then add canals for the Trent and Mersey, though not going to
Stafford does pass through our area.

I'm also beginning to feel there is something in the development of
parks in the Potteries which might be about patrician landlordship and
municipal socialism, which might want further exploration?

Yet Palliser's book jacket tells us that "it is easily the richest
county for Georgian landscaped gardens" (though inside we are told
this comes from Pevsner (p133) but we might be being told something
quite different for the reference is actually to buildings in parks.
This is to get into an argument about categories which will take us
far beyond the point of this essay, though not the issues.)   We
haven't got any of this yet, and reading Palliser tells us little.

2. Members of a class (ipmcase)

Stafford
Eccleshall
Barlaston
Trentham
Maer
Swynnerton
Chartley
Sandon
Ingestre
Tixall
Shugborough
Aqualate

I have relegated Beaudesert, Fisherwick, Hilton, Himley to Birmingham
along with Badger, Chillington, Weston, Tong, Paatshull to
Wolverhampton, Enville to Stourbridge, and Biddulph to Stoke all of
which are parts of other galleries although the dominance of the
county structure means I have had to plough through them all.
Trentham will be the interesting one for it will form the connector
between Stoke and Stafford appearing in both without loss of integrity (ipmcase).

Broadly and simply I have been through all the resources above and
identified these.  My assertion is that there is no way this may be
done by information and communication technology with what is
currently understood It might be that I am the only person on the
planet interested in this combination so it is not worth any research
and investment.

Perhaps I should also mention that should I want to work through the
Victoria County Histories without knowing the strings for which I am
searching, I am facing a read of many thousands of pages.  They are
organised by hundreds and parishes.

(Around this point I need to introduce another category, the concept
of the garden, the park, the forest, the landscape, the lake, the
wood, statues, fountains, obelisks, temples, canals and other
features.  These terms have long historics and we might need to elaborate.)

I have divided Stoke into a related term, which wasn't my original
intention.  I decided there was simply too much.  This is strange
given the basics.

I now want to move into a different tack entirely, which is how we may
present these as a visual representation.




















This shows something which I have had to make up.  The currently
available information (using the term very loosely) and none of them,
in any combination, gives me information in the form I need it.  In
case I might be held to be more English cultural specific than is
entirely desirable, my experience throughout the world is that no
where is public transport information organised above the most primitive.

What I have found is that I have no alternative but to go there to be informed.













Now I can attempt to build the above.

Is this information?

Now these are going to be the basis for doing what would be recognised
as more straight forward.

I may take Desmond (1984) which has a county index, and find the
relevant references (ipmcase) and then the documents (ipmcase).  I may
take the Historic Gardens Trust bibliography since 1996, which is a
slightly more complex object but worth looking at.  May I make myself
completely clear: if I didn't have these strings, I would have no
choice but to read 10,000 lines, and in more digital cases, no way of
knowing about precision and recall (ipmcase).  It is at this case that
I introduce metadata architectures (ipmcase) but I want more fun
before I return to that.

At some point I must also introduce historic maps, about which in the
area I at the moment know nothing except for Yates, 1755.  I also know
though that the management and information processing of maps is a
particular object about which I know very little indeed, and I also
know its organisation in Britain involves some very specialist
enthusiasms (ipmcase).

Now I have to decide what is worth going to have a look at.  This is
partly an aesthetic experience which might be recognised in any domain
of art at all.  But this is also now a contested category for there
isn't an established domain of artistic literature, nor controlled
vocabularies, no Getty trust or thesaurus (ipmcase). We are having to
build it from scratch.

Going to have a look also involves a number of information objects
which include rights (ipmcase) and representations.  Elsewhere I
called these the white road problem and the green space problem.  They
involve what is represented on the map and what exists on the ground.
This involves where I have a right, and whether I may implement or
execute or exert my right, or be cowed.

Going to have a look has a further series of consequences.  Otium
(lgcase) is one point of the exercise.  But there will be all sorts of
ghastly things going on which lead us to negotium (lgcase).  These
then involve political action.

Round about here I will go back to google for now I have some strings
which are more unique than most.  I can also go to AHI, and a variety
of other resources all developed within a framework which I called
710. On what appears to be a simple point.  Perhaps I should introduce
the top level here?

3. E(DM):(ED)M

We now want to output the result of the walk.  This includes taking
photographs and importing maps from old maps sites.  It might also
include scanned images from historic texts.  We might scale from a
picture having a caption, to a picture with some text, a paragraph or
two, to a linear narrative with pictures in some sort of proximity.
This might be done in Powerpoint or Word, in which case there will be
different structures, or in a database, in which case everything will
be quite different, and the output might be in html, pdf, or on paper.
This process needs to be managed.  This I have called the use of new
information and communication technologies (electronic) in document
management, with an association with the management of elecontric (or
digital) documents.

Each document will have a title, of some sort, be associated with a
gallery, make references to makers (patrons, designers), have
associations with places, and be connectors and concentrators for
public transport and rights of way.

For a demonstration of the result see www.greenandsmart.org created
for the British Association of the Advancement of Science millennium
festival at Imperial College London in 2000.

The results as also used at meeting either in a structured way with
local government in order to influence policy decisions or in local
communities in partnership in order to build groups of people who wish
to engage in particular campaigns. A demonstration of the latter is
the Royal Society of Arts Challenge held in 2004.  Media here might
include output onto large poster boards, leaflets, t-shirts.

4. Information for sustainable development

This paper is crafted at the beginning of the UNESCO decade of
education for sustainable development.  The case developed so far,
based on the landscape gallery and green and smart is to make a
proposition about what is needed for sustainable development, that we
recognise utility and amenity and otium and negotium.  This means we
have to work within what in Britain are called strategic community
partnerships, unitary development plans, local transport plans, health
implementation plans, and you will have something similar.  It also
means I have to work within where I work, and within my professional
society.  There is a link for the modules I design are based on my
practice, my modules are validated by my university and by my
professional society, and I chair a specialist group of the
professional society which validates my modules.

What we would next wish to explore is how to move from the
particularity we have constructed to the more general issues of
health, education, (transport we have, though in only one case), and
now we must decide what else is significant.

This case is clearly quite different from the case of CANCER with will
follow in a future article, and quite different from the work on third
world cities in which I have done much of my work.


ends

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