Three nations separated by a common language: Building the Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage.

Presenter: Phil CarlisleEnglish Heritage

Date: Wednesday 21st, November 2012

TRACK 3: NEW FRONTIERS IN INFORMATION MANAGEMENTSESSION: WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

Introduction

• About me• Background• The Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage• Scope of the project• Problems• One possible solution

Background

• 1908 - Establishment of the Royal Commissions on the Historical Monuments of England, and the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and Wales

• 1930s - Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division• 1980s - OS records cards transferred to

RCHME/RCAHMS/RCAHMW• 1990s - Computerization of OS record cards to

create the National Monument Records• 1995 – Publication of RCHME/EH thesauri• 1999 – RCHME/English Heritage Merger

Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage

• First conceived in 2000 (!) as the British and Irish Thesaurus of Cultural Heritage

• Intended to provide a common terminology for use in recording the built and buried heritage of the UK and Ireland

• RCHME/EH thesauri• RCAHMS wordlists• RCAHMW wordlist

Scope of the project

• Combine the terminologies relating to Monument Type in use by the 3 home nations’ National Monuments Records (NMRs)

• Extend vocabularies to include Welsh and Scots Gaelic

• Add other vocabularies to create Uber-thesaurus

• Include Periods • Add images• Add articles

Obstacles to collaboration

• Different perspectives on:– Regional terminology– Periods and dating

• Different recording practices– Phasing

• Standard Deviation– When is it okay to change a standard– When is a castle a concentric castle?

Aerial view of Mid Vord Cairn and Treawick Township. Copyright RCAHMS

Regional Terminology

• English – Plain An Gwarry - Cornish Amphitheatre– Wootton Hill Style Enclosure – a defended enclosure usually found in

Northamptonshire– Jube/cludgie/jakes/gong – toilets

• Scottish – Township - A group of dwellings, associated farm buildings and land, held by

two or more joint tenants usually working the land communally. Includes Clachan and Fermtoun

– Backlands - An area of open ground associated with a medieval urban dwelling.

– Blackhouse - A dwelling comprising byre, barn and living quarters, with walls consisting of inner and outer dry stone facings with an insulating turf core.

• Welsh– Llys - Regional court or administrative centre of a Welsh Prince.

– Ty Bach - A small building containing a lavatory. – Argae - a flood defence bank in the Upper Severn Valley

Case Study “VALLUM”

• Same word, different meanings– EH Term = VALLUM (BT RAMPART)

• “A flat bottomed ditch flanked by mounds running to the south of Hadrian's Wall for much of its length, marking the boundary of the military zone.”

– RCAHMS Term = VALLUM (BT BOUNDARY EARTHWORK)

• A boundary comprising a ditch and one or more earth banks. Usually associated with either a monastery or a Roman military installation.

– RCAHMW Term = Monastic Vallum USE RELIGIOUS HOUSE

Periods and dating

• ROMAN– England & Wales

• 43AD-410AD

– Scotland• No Roman Period

• MEDIEVAL– England

• 1066-1540 (dissolution of the monasteries)

– Wales• 1066-1536 (Act of Union between England and Wales)

– Scotland• 1058-1542 (Ascension to the throne of Mary Queen of Scots)

Recording Practice: Phasing a site

• EH - Record may have multiple periods involving multiple site types split into distinct phases

• RCAHMW – Multiple periods, multiple site types• RCAHMS - Only dating for Prehistoric, Roman

and 20th Century, multiple site types per record

Standard Deviation

• EH Thesaurus of Monument Types forms basis of both Scottish and Welsh Thesauri

• Scottish and Welsh ‘stripped back’– CASTLE but not CONCENTRIC CASTLE– PILLBOX but not PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/24)

• Hierarchical, Equivalent and Associative relationships have been altered and/or removed

RAF Aerial View of Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey. Copyright RCAHMW

Case Study “CASTLE”

• Welsh thesaurus stripped back to only include ‘CASTLE’

• Wales has the most and best examples of concentric castles in the UK including Beaumaris

• Conversely England has no true concentric castle

Solving the problem

• Move to a ‘concept’ based rather than ‘term’ based KOS

But…• Requirement for a collaborative editing tool• Requirement for a CHEAP editing tool• Needs to be future-proofed• Needs to be able to create/host/map

terminologies• Needs to be accessible remotely• Needs to allow different levels of access• Needs to allow multilingual capability

www.ehkos.org.uk

• Intended as a collaborative tool for use by the heritage community

• Intended to be ‘All-singing, all-dancing’ with more bells and whistles than are strictly necessary

• Phase 1 – completed in 2006• Developed in-house (EH) on a

shoe-string budget• Phase 1 – Live (ish) but bug-

tastic• Phase 2 – In the process of

being specified• Unlikely to be funded

internally

Editing

• Allows registered users to contribute

• 3 levels of access• Registered – submit

candidate concepts• Admin – manage KOS• Super User – manage

KOS and users

Mapping (and other fancy stuff coming soon hopefully)

• Tool enables terminologies to be imported and mapped to core vocabularies

• Manages controlled vocabularies of all types.– Including People and

Organisations• Able to create new

relationship types including CIDOC- CRM properties

• Export/import in various formats including BS8723, SKOS, csv etc.

Contact

Phil CarlisleData Standards Unit,English HeritageThe Engine HouseFire Fly AvenueSwindonSN2 2EHEmail: philip.carlisle@english-heritage.org.ukEH Thesauri: http://thesaurus.english-heritage.org.uk/ EHKOS: http://www.ehkos.org.uk/RCAHMS Thesaurus: http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/RCAHMW Thesaurus: http://www.coflein.gov.uk/