5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG The problem with place The Moulds may change but the Jelly remains the same

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG The Jelly “ what do you do? we foindle and fungle, we bonkle and meigle and maxpoffle, we scotstarvit, armit, wormit, and even whifflet, we play at crosstobs, leuchars, gorbals, and finfan, we scavaig, and there’s aye a bit of tilquhilly, if its wet treshnish and mishnish.” Extract from: Canedolia by Edwin Morgan.

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Place types  Physical features  e.g. rivers, mountains etc.  River Spey, Ben Cleuch  Human topography  Man-made physical features, principally inhabited places, but also roads etc  Glasgow, Kylesku, The Slug Road  Conceptual geography  Counties, administrative areas etc  Angus, Strathmiglo parish, Aberdeen Unitary Authority?

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Problems with place 1  Colloquiallism  The essence of a place?  The spoken word v historic textual record  e.g. Glasguae = Glascovia = Cathures = Glascovium = Glascua = Glascuensis = Glascum = Glasqua = Glasquensis

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Problems with place 2  Time  Name changes  e.g. Striveling = Stirling  Name stays the same but geographic coverage changes  Place ceases to exist  Can a place cease to exist?

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Problems with place 3  Language  Translation and back again…  e.g. Callanish = Callanais  Transliteration  Toponymic homonyms  468 Hoseynabads in Iran!

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Examples  Bunnahabhain or Bonavon?  HOYK  Strachan  Ineloid, Ineloid  = Inchina Inchina  Isle of Amron

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG The (most common) Moulds  Library of Congress Subject Headings.  Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names.  British Museum/Home grown subject headings.

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG LCSH examples  Place (Qualifier) – Subject – Form  Glasgow (Scotland) - ? – Maps.  Subject – Qualifier – Place  Roads – Scotland – Glasgow

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) 1  Strengths  Widely used  Extensively documented  Consistent  Gathers under most recent place name  Easy to use with MARC  Weaknesses  Non-local heading creation  Unweildy headings  Not intuitive for user or cataloguer  Lack of historical awareness

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) 2  Opportunities  Truly global?  Addition of coordinates to authority records  Threats  Wikipedia as “authority”!  Too big – too many users - inconsistent

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG TGN examples  Hierarchical structure  World – Europe – United Kingdom – Scotland – Glasgow – Unitary Authority.  World – Europe – United Kingdom – Scotland – Glasgow – Glasgow – Inhabited Place.

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) 1  Strengths  Intuitive headings  Easy to use  Designed for graphic media so suits maps  International use in cultural sector  Current and historical headings  Weaknesses  Unfamiliar to library users  Long strings can be unweildy  Inconsistency between preferences  No subject/topic

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) 2  Opportunities  Partnership working with other cultural institutions  Threats

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Local heading examples  Place – Subject – Date– Form  Glasgow – 1878 – Plans  Glasgow – Roads – Atlases

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG British Museum / Home-grown subject headings 1  Strengths  Names in local use  Collection specific  Continuity with card catalogue  General subject access  Date of content  Weaknesses  No authority – self- referencing  Inconsistent  Unfamiliar to all users  Keyword searching in OPAC only – lack of string display

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG British Museum / Home-grown subject headings 2  Opportunities  Easy to add places and topics  Simple to use  Threats  Special fields in LMS  Expense  Development  Lack of support

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Geo-referencing “The process of delimiting a given object, either physical … or conceptual … in terms of its spatial relationship to the land; the geographic thus established consists of points, lines, areas or volumes defined in terms of some coordinate system.”

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG Subject landscapes  Artefacts with physical locations  Clusters  Maps of subject holdings  Imagined subject themed landscapes

5 th September 2008CILIP/ CIG National Library of Scotland  Map Library  33 Salisbury Place Edinburgh EH9 1SL  