Topic, Place, and Time Period Notes for Discussion Michael Buckland Library of Congress, February 11, 2005.

Example: Moving between two media types, both digital. Text Social datasets It is difficult to move between different kinds of document: e.g. Dataset of social statistics and passages of text. You cannot use text to search among numbers -- or numbers to search texts.

TextTOPIC LIST CaptionsSocial datasets Different media types on the same topic can be linked indirectly via topical metadata, but in this case you need to specify place also.

TextTOPIC LIST MapsGAZETTEERCaptionsSocial datasets Normalizing place names requires a gazetteer -- and latitude and longitude allow points on maps. But the time period is also needs to be specified...

BIOG. DICT. TextTOPIC LIST MapsGAZETTEERCaptionsSocial datasets TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Timeline Chronology Similarly with personal names... etc.

BIOG. DICT. 2 BIOG. DICT. TOPIC LIST 3 Text 2 TOPIC LIST 2 TextTOPIC LIST MapsGAZETTEERCaptionsSocial GAZETTEER 2etcdatasets GAZETTEER 3 TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Time line TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 2 Chronology TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 3 Many resources exist... and many for normalizing

1: Examples of chronological subdivisions (6XX$y) Chronological subdivisions ($y) 1 Roman period, 55 B.C.-499 A.D. 2 Wars of the Roses, Middle ages, Cultural Revolution,

2: Examples of chronological subdivisions under the subject heading: United State-History 1 Colonial period, ca Revolution, Civil War, Confederation, War with Mexico, World War,

Table 2: Main subject headings with "Civil war" as chronological subdivision Main subject headingChronological subdivision Great Britain Civil war, United StatesCivil war, SpainCivil war, ChinaCivil war, NigeriaCivil war,

BIOG. DICT. 2 BIOG. DICT. TOPIC LIST 3 Text 2 TOPIC LIST 2 TextTOPIC LIST MapsGAZETTEERCaptionsSocial GAZETTEER 2etcdatasets GAZETTEER 3 TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Time line TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 2 Chronology TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 3 Many resources exist... and many for normalizing