THESAURI AND CONTROLLED VOCABULARY AT TE PAPA Adrian Kingston Collection Information Manager - Digital Assets & Development Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

+I am not a thesaurus expert +Not a dynamic subject + Covering a large subject area very quickly + Some developments are just ideas at this stage + Attempt to comply with ISO 2788, Guidelines for Monolingual Thesauri (and Multilingual when appropriate) DISCLAIMERS

+ Object Classification- + Three level hierarchical classification derived from Chennel OR + Subject classification from unknown source + Production Place- Three level hierarchy for places, though boundaries not always useful + Few picklists, most overridden + Very little control over “parties” creation starting to standardise the lists in preparation of new system + Taxonomy- Linnaean PREVIOUS SYSTEM - TE KAHUI

+ Considerable emphasis on vocabulary control + Approx 75% of the Humanities catalogue vocabulary controlled + Approx 80% of Natural Environment catalogue is vocabulary controlled + Most Lookups are not editable, users can not modify thesaurus EMu

+ Object Classification: Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) Components, Furnishings and Equipment, Visual and Verbal Communications + Materials: AAT Material Facet + Technique: AAT Processes and Techniques facet + Subject: Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I Subject Terms + Period / Style: AAT Style and Periods Facet + Concept / Activities: AAT Associated Concepts Facet + Associated place, production place, birth/death place; Getty Thesaurus Geographic Names THESAURI AT TE PAPA

+ Iwi/Ethnic Group: Statistics NZ Standards for Ethnicity (Ethnic Group), Ministry of Culture and Heritage Iwi list (Iwi) + Language: ISO 639 Codes for the representation of names of languages (selected) + Production Role/Party Specialties: Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) roles list LOOK-UP LISTS AT TE PAPA

Difficulties + Big change + How to find the correct term? + Selecting and attaching multiples + Language + Issues with general cataloguing skills + Most hadn’t used a real thesaurus before, found the concepts confusing Solutions + List views for faster browsing of search results + Shortcuts (airport codes for main cities etc) combined with also-search + Training sessions + EMuhelp provides constant advocacy and advice to users + Minor tweaks to EMu functionality USERS

PROS OF AAT + In theory, can cater for any human-made object + Helps with interoperabilty + Authoritative, collaborative, respected, frequently recommended + Covers art well, and most social history objects + Good scope notes, references + Getty did all the work! CONS OF AAT + Huge + Complicated, not natural thought process for many people + Language (American English, aluminum) + Users think it can be too specific

PROS OF TGN + Covers the entire world! + Interoperable + Respected, recommended + They did all the work! CONS OF TGN + Language (preferred to whom) Deutschland, Suomi, Zhonghua- Germany, Finland, China + Te Papa is usually describing New Zealand or the Pacific, rest of the world can get in the way + Ambiguity (Wellington)

PROS OF TGM I + Covers huge range of subject matter CONS OF TGM I + Arranged alphabetically, harder to find terms. + Keywords more than thesaurus + Language (American English) + Vernacular + Not much in the way of scope notes

+ Objects + Simplify, cut down (we don’t collect buildings) + Adjust language/spelling (watercolors) + Remain compatible with AAT (alternates) + Mäori, Pacific thesauri (separate from, but complimentary, to AAT) + Bulk changes of legacy data to new terms + Materials + As above + NZ specific materials (kauri, rimu, pounamu) + Period + Add historical periods specific to Matauranga Maori (traditional knowledge) and New Zealand colonisation WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

+ TGN + Swap preferred term around, English preferred rather than vernacular preferred (China, rather than Zhonghua, Germany rather than Deutschland) + Replace New Zealand with LINZ gazetteer? Gives: + historical and archaeological (pa sites) sites, + latitude and longitude co-ordinates, + plus more accurate rivers, hills and other geographic and historic features WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

Natural Environment + In addition to Linnaean taxonomy, need non- scientific/general public friendly classifications, eg: + Habitat (forest canopy, intertidal zone) + Predator, scavenger etc + Endangered, protected, extinct etc + Introduced, native etc + Good to eat, poisonous etc + Traditional uses, eg; feathers etc + Associations with Atua (gods) WHAT WE PLAN TO DO

Previous changes: + Searching within a facet (from the thesaurus) + Display of full string from thesaurus hierarchy to give context + Partly due to not being able to change from detail view to browse view + Don’t have to open the broader term record, then its broader term, then its broader term, then… + Searching non-usable terms from the catalogue EMu FUNCTIONALITY

(Possible) Future changes + IRN instead of word matching + Need to search on the actual term, not words + Currently need to bulk replaces if change a term in thesaurus EMu FUNCTIONALITY

+ WebChoir TCS-10TCS-10 + How to make thesauri available for online use? OUTSIDE OF EMu

+ Internal uses; collection management, conservation, research, etc + Reliable searches for the public and researchers + CIDOC CRM, Collections online. Consistent terminology core component of (automatically) building relationships between objects, people, places, and topics. WHY

+ Difficult + Important CONCLUSI ON