What, Where, When, and Who:

1
What, Where, When, and Who A Renaissance for
the Reference Collection Michael Buckland School
of Information Management Systems and
Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative, University
of California, Berkeley Ohio State University
Libraries, November 15, 2005
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• In a paper library the reference collection is
  arranged in convenient categories and for making
  notes on . . .
• What, When, Where, Who, Why, and How
• using specialist genres of reference works
• General and subject areas Dictionaries and
  encyclopedias
• Geography section Atlases and gazetteers
• History section Chronologies and time-lines
• Biography section Whos whos, biographical
  dictionaries
• etc.
• This has become more difficult in a digital
  environment.

3

• WHAT? Searching by topic, e.g. Dewey, LCSH, any
  subject index, or category scheme.
• Two kinds of mapping in every search
• Documents are assigned to topic categories, e.g.
  Dewey
• Queries have to map to topic categories, e.g.
  Deweys Relativ Index from ordinary words/phrases
  to Decimal Classification numbers.
• Also mapping between topic systems, e.g. US
  Patent classification and International Patent
  Classification.

4
Text
Numeric datasets It is
difficult to move between different media forms.
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Text THESAURUS
Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric
datasets Different media can be
linked indirectly via metadata, but sometimes
(e.g. for socio-economic numeric data series) you
also need to specify WHERE.
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WHERE. Geo-temporal search interface. Place
names found in documents. Gazetteer provided lat.
long. Places displayed on map.
Timebar?
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Zoom on map. Click on place for a list of
records. Click on record to display text.
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WHERE Place names are problematic - Variant
forms St. Petersburg, ????? ?????????,
Saint-Pétersbourg, . . . - Multiple names Cluj,
in Romania / Roumania / Rumania, is also called
Klausenburg and Kolozsvar. - Names changes
Bombay ? Mumbai. - HomographsVienna, VA, and
Vienna, Austria 50 Springfields. -
Anachronisms No Germany before 1870 - Vague,
e.g. Midwest, Silicon Valley - Unstable
boundaries 19th century Poland Balkans
USSR. Use a gazetteer!
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 A catalog record Isle of Man Tramways. ISBN
0715347403 008 700812 1970 enkabh, b,fe 001
0 eng Country of publication code for
England 043 a e-uik Geographic Area Code. The
cataloger has erroneously used the Country Code
used in field 008, instead of the Geographic Area
Code prescribed for 043. Should be e-uk-ui for
Europe. Great Britain Miscellaneous Island
Dependencies. 050 0 a TF764.M27 b P4 1970
Geographic code embedded in Library of Congress
Classification number 082 0 a 388.4/6/094289
Geographic code embedded in Dewey Decimal
Classification number 100 1 a Pearson, Frederick
Keith. Author 245 10 a Isle of Man tramways, c
by F. K. Pearson Place name used adjectivally
in title. 260 a Newton Abbot b David
Charles, c 1970. Place of publication, not in
the Isle of Man. 500 a Imprint covered by
label A. M. Kelley, New York. Note that Place
of publication obscured. 6102 0 a Manx Electric
Railway Company. Adjective for Isle of Man used
in corporate name used as subject heading. 650 0
a Street-railroads z Man, Isle of. Geographic
subdivision using inverted form of name. The
island known as Man is represented six different
ways, three searchable.
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Catalogs and gazetteers should talk to each other!
Catalog search
Gazetteer search
Geographic sort / display of catalog search
result.
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Ask the gazetteer where Urbana is?
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Text THESAURUS
Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric
datasets Proper place name control
requires a gazetteer -- and latitude and
longitude allow points on maps.
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• WHEN. Search by time is also weakly supported.
• Calendars are the standard for time.
• But people use the names of events to refer to
  time periods.
• Named time periods resemble place names in being
• Unstable European War, Great War, First World
  War.
• Multiple Second World War, Great Patriotic War.
• Ambiguous Civil war in different centuries in
  England, USA, Spain.
• Places have temporal aspects periods have
  geographical aspects When the Stone Age was,
  varies by region.

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Similarity between place names and period
names So a similar solution A gazetteer-like
Time Period Directory. Gazetteer Place name
Type Spatial markers (Lat long) -- When Time
Period Directory Period name Type Time
markers (Calendar) Where Note the
symmetry. Note the connections between Where and
When. A directory of 2,000 named time periods
derived from LCSH Chronological subdivisions is
at ecai.org/imls2004
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Web Interface - Access by country / US state /
world city
Named periods used in scholarly discourse.
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Web Interface - Access by map
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Web Interface - Access by timeline
Link initiates search of the Library of Congress
catalog for all records relating to this time
period.
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WHEN and WHAT. These named time periods are
derived from Library of Congress catalog subject
headings and so can be used for catalog searching
which finds books on topics important for that
time period.
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Text THESAURUS
Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric
datasets TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY
Timeline Chronology
Genres and INFRASTRUCTURE
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WHEN, WHERE and WHO. Catalog records found from
a time period search commonly include names of
persons important at that time. Their names can
be forwarded to, e.g., biographies in the
Wikipedia encyclopedia.
21
Place and time are broadly important across
numerous tools and genres including, e.g.
Language atlases, Library catalogs, Biographical
dictionaries, Bibliographies, Archival finding
aids, Museum records, etc., etc. Biographical
dictionaries are heavy on place and time
Emanuel Goldberg, Born Moscow 1881. PhD under
Wilhelm Ostwald, Univ. of Leipzig, 1906.
Director, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1926-33. Moved to
Palestine 1937. Died Tel Aviv, 1970. Life as a
series of episodes involving Activity (WHAT),
WHERE, WHEN, and WHO else.
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BIOG. DICT.
Text THESAURUS Maps GAZETTEER Captio
ns Numeric datasets TIME PERIOD
DIRECTORY Timeline
Chronology
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BIOG. DICT. 2 BIOG. DICT. THESAURUS
3 Text 2 THESAURUS 2 Text THESAURUS
Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric GAZETTEER
2 etc datasets GAZETTEER 3 TIME PERIOD
DIRECTORY Time line TIME PERIOD
DIRECTORY 2 Chronology TIME PERIOD
DIRECTORY 3
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Through - standards - good practice -
interoperability an intermediate infrastructure
like a traditional reference collection could be
built and shared.
Thank-you! ecai.org/imls2004
buckland_at_sims.berkeley.edu Work done jointly with
Fredric Gey, Ray Larson, and others.
Acknowledgments Institute of Museum Library
Services, National Science Foundation, DARPA,
Academia Sinica (Taiwan), Alexandria Digital
Library project, and others.