The problem we have at the moment that the list of people we maintain in
our database is, quite simply, just a list. Unfortunately it arose through
working practices in the old RCHME and as such conforms only to our own
internal standards (and in this instance they are very dodgy!). We would
like to conform to the NCA guidelines for Personal and proper names and
build some form of hierarchical structure relating to the role the person
played but this would be extremely resource intensive. At present we have
c.43,000 names in our people table and many of these will be variants on the
same person.
Eg.
GG Scott,
Giles Gilbert Scott,
Sir GG Scott,
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott etc.
So as you can see 1 database hundreds of problems. I agree with Richard that
we need to develop a strategy but I think we should be advocating the NCA
guidelines as a starting point and this would imply imposing the need for
similar database structures (or am I wrong?)
Any thoughts?
Phil
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Light [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 January 2002 13:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Genealogical thesauruses/thesauri
In message <[log in to unmask]>,
"Lee, Edmund" <[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>For what it's worth the NMR currently has an authority file to cover the
>recording of People. We've looked into this and backed away hastily alarmed
>at the potential scale that a more fully developed list could rapidly grow
>to.
It would probably help to talk in terms of databases rather than "lists"
- they scale rather better! (And it's what you are using anyway, isn't
it?) However, thesaurus databases are only useful if they can be
accessed as easily and as widely as a printed list - which brings us
back to the issue of an interchange/delivery format, I fear!
For massive tasks like People, it obviously makes sense to develop a
strategy where a number of projects can each develop a resource which
meets the needs of their own specialist area, but using common standards
so that users can search across _all_ "People" thesauri (for example)
and get back hits from any or all of the individual databases involved.
(The "common standards" need only apply to asking questions and getting
answers back: there is NO need to impose uniform database structures on
every project.)
Richard Light.
--
Richard Light
SGML/XML and Museum Information Consultancy
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