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ninch-announce: Computer Science and Fine-Art Cataloging

ninch-announce: Computer Science and Fine-Art Cataloging

Computer Science and Fine-Art Cataloging

David Green (david@cni.org)
Fri, 8 Aug 1997 11:28:29 -0400 

Message-Id: <v02130504b010e6ff31f7@[192.100.21.23]>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 11:28:29 -0400
To: ninch-announce@cni.org
From: david@cni.org (David Green)
Subject: Computer Science and Fine-Art Cataloging

NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
August 8, 1997


I thought this contribution to yesterday's HUMANIST by Rich Giordano was
not only interesting in itself but a partial response to Robert Baron's
comment quoted yesterday on fine-art cataloging.

Giordano refers to a computer science project for developing "structured
terminologies and description logics for use by art archivists and
historians." I quote from the Abstract Giordano refers to following his
posting.

David Green

=========================================================================

From: HUMANIST:

              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 11, No. 222.
      Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
              <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
             <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>


        Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 10:52:49 -0500
        From: Richard Giordano <Richard_Giordano@Brown.edu>
        Subject: Humanities Applications in Computer Science.

I'd like to draw attention to members of the Humanist some of the work that
my colleagues at the Department of Computer Science (at the University of
Manchester) have begun with respect to applying structured terminologies
and description logics for use by art archivists and historians.  The
project description can be found at
<http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/mig/people/seanb/starch>.  A position paper on the
subject can be found at
<http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/people/seanb/art/position.htm>.

This project, in my opinion, is an example of a marriage between the
interests of computer scientists and the needs of art historians and
archivists.

/rich

======================================

The Abstract cited by Giordano:

"The semi-structured information, found in art or document archives,
requires flexible ways of being classified and powerful ways of being
retrieved based on subject content. Current approaches based on keywords or
coding schemes are inadequate. The proposed work addresses this issue by
the design and construction of a pilot annotation and cataloguing workbench
for art archivists, driven by a structured, dynamic composition
alterminological model of subject content managed by a Description Logic.
Research is required in the user tools for formulating queries, navigating
through the terminology space and browsing instances, and the
classification coherency of dynamic evolving instance descriptions."

=====================================
>
>I don't think of the differences between library and fine-arts cataloging
>as due to distinctions in technology and database sophistication, but,
>rather due to fundamental differences between their respective cataloged
>content.  True, fine-arts cataloging will be well served by finely hewn
>thesauri and efficiently networked databases, but the core difference, to
>me, revolves around understanding the work of art as a unique man-made
>object in which style, subject, patronage, meaning, aesthetics, purpose and
>use are the defining criteria -- criteria rarely written into the work
>itself. Book cataloging, in contrast, looks at the tangible, proceeds from
>the given, defines categories of use to users, classifies by criteria
>suitable to serve as finding aids.  Looking at it this way, it seems only
>natural that computers came to libraries first and that to make computers
>bend to the demands of the fine arts has been, to say it mildly, a struggle.
>
>Robert Baron

===============================================================

David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@cni.org
202/296-5346                                  202/872-0886 fax

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