On 15 March 2011 13:41, Richard Light <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I think that we as a community are missing a trick in this area. If we had,
> not fragmented institution-specific "object name" termlists, but a
> sensibly-organised object class thesaurus/ontology, this could be used both
> within the profession (for assessing collections coverage & the potential
> for sharing resources) and for engagement with the public. When NMSI put up
> a picture of a Hillman Imp from their collection and asked for comments from
> the public, they weren't asking about that specific car, but about the class
> of which that was an instance. People instinctively understand that idea of
> abstraction from the instance to the class, but we lack a shared tool to
> express that shared understanding in relation to our collections.
Without disputing the first point, I wish we knew more about the
second - do audiences really always think of the class, or type, of
object rather than the instance, or individual object? And if it
varies, when does it change? I've blogged part of my dissertation
that discusses a potential mental model for 'rockets, lockets and
sprockets' based on 'distinctiveness' (http://bit.ly/ia59Fc or
http://openobjects.blogspot.com/2011/03/rockets-lockets-and-sprockets-towards.html
if it's not chopped by JISCMail) that may be relevant.
One reason I've been thinking about 'distinctiveness' is because I'm
wondering how we help people find the interesting records - the iconic
objects, the intriguing stories - in a collection of 240,000 objects.
Being able to distinguish between classes/types and
instances/individual objects would be useful.
Cheers, Mia
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