In article <s6a3355d.058@internet>, on Mon, 18 Jan 1999 at 13:21:16,
Frances Lloyd-Baynes (Frances Lloyd-Baynes) <URL:
mailto:[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>In our discussions, the curatorial staff have raised the issue of recording and
>controlling fictional places in cataloguing, particularly as places depicted on
>objects. I have definite ideas on how I would like to address this, but am
>curious to know how other museums are handling the recording of fictional
>places
>within their collections databases. Are you in fact controlling them? If so,
>how? What form does this authority take?
>
If these terms recur in your collections I certainly think it is worth
controlling them if you are to provide for consistent and reliable
retrieval. As with any other new field, the most useful thing to do
first would be to make a list of the names you need to record and then
see what useful groupings they can reasonably be put into.
To take a few at random that occur to me:
Lilliput
River Styx
Atlantis
Garden of the Hesperides
Barsetshire
Valhalla
Mordor
Dingley Dell
Limbo
Oz (as in Wizard of, not Aussie)
Hundred Acre Wood
Camelot
Xanadu
Ambridge
Ruritania
You could group these by the type of literature with which they are
associated (e.g. by culture, date or region: Greek, Roman or Nordic
mythology, 19th century British, etc.), by the religion or religious
group from which they originate, by the supposed location, or by the
author of the work in which they first appeared. Such categories are not
mutually exclusive (if I can get in my usual plug for the need for
polyhierarchy). You have to decide what groupings are going to be useful
for the users of your collections.
A different question is the determination of the preferred form of name
to be used for each place, to which variant forms can be referred, e.g.
Valhalla
USE FOR Walhalla
BT Asgard
The usual answer is to use "the form of name by which the place is most
commonly known", having regard to the form used in the original work (if
ascertainable) and the form used in "authoritative reference works". You
will also have to decide whether to use the form in the original
language or the language in which you are preparing your catalogue.
It might be worth looking at what ICONCLASS
<http://iconclass.let.ruu.nl/home.html>
does with place names, particularly from classical mythology and
religion.
This could be quite a fun thesaurus to compile!
Leonard
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