workofart-brainstorming

Work of Art Brainstorming

This page is for brainstorming about ideas, proposals, constraints, and requirements for a work of art microformat.

This is part of a community effort to create a work-of-art microformat. (See also: workofart-examples, workofart-formats.)

Participants

• Tim Gambell
• Samantha Orme

The Problem

Many art museums use metadata to describe the works of art in their collections. However, the presentation of works of art on the web often does not benefit from that formalized categorization work. We'd like to develop a xhtml markup standard for the presentation of works of art on the web.

Solution Proposals

CDWA Lite Strawman

Use class names based on the CDWA Lite 0.9 Work in Progress XML Schema.

This example is based on a CDWA example

<span class="cdwalite">
    <span class="objectWorkTypeWrap">
        <span class="objectWorkType">watercolor</span>
    </span>
    <span class="titleWrap">
        <span class="titleSet">
            <span class="title">Conway Castle, North Wales</span>
        </span>
    </span>
    <span class="titleWrap">
        <span class="titleSet">
            <span class="title">Conway Castle, North Wales</span>
        </span>
    </span>
    <span class="displayCreator">Joseph Mallord William Turner (British painter, 1775-1851)</span>
    <span class="displayMeasurements">53.6 x 76.7 cm (21 1/8 in. x 30 1/8 in.)</span>
    <span class="displayMaterialsTech">Watercolor and gum arabic with graphite underdrawing</span>
    <span class="styleWrap">
        <span class="style">Romanticism</span>
    </span>
    <span class="descriptiveNoteWrap">
        <span class="descriptiveNoteSet">
            <span class="descriptiveNote">This is the largest of Turner's four extant watercolors of this medieval castle on the northern coast of Wales. Turner portrays the landscape and ocean in a dramatic fashion, using angry clouds, sunshine, and roiling waves to animate the scene and emphasize the struggle of the fishermen...</span>
        </span>
    </span>
    <span class="locationWrap"> 
        <span class="locationSet">
            <span class="locationName currentRepository">J. Paul Getty Museum (New York, New York, USA)</span>
            <span class="locationName repositoryLocation">Los Angeles (California, USA)</span>
            <span class="locationName repositoryNumbers">95.GC.10.</span>
        </span>
    </span> 
</span>

Unresolved issues in CDWA Lite Strawman:

• Is the markup prohibitively complicated?
• Are wrap tags (such as "objectWorkTypeWrap", "titleWrap" etc) necessary?
• Are display tags (such as "displayCreator") preferable to indexing tags? (See the CDWA Lite XML Schema for a list of display and indexing tags.)
• What is the best way to deal with attributes on xml tags (such as "type=", "termsource=" and "termsourceID=")?

Discussion

• What is the best of the existing metadata schema to use as the basis for the work of art microformat?

• What is the best way to integrate existing microformats into the work of art microformat? For example, would it be appropriate to use the hCard microformat to identify the artist? To identify the work of art's location?

• Ryan Cannon proposes that work-of-art could be produced as a special case of the citation microformat.

• I propose that work-of-art should be (more specifically) an extension of the citation microformat. I propose that the goal of work-of-art be to create a simplified version of CDWA, whose core components are those parts of CDWA that are most commonly used when representing a work of art online. However, work-of-art should be extensible such that any work of art may be accomodated. Essentially, work-of-art should strongly encourage the use of its core components (for consistency), but allow additional elements for those cases in which they are strictly necessary. Opinions on the utility and/or drawbacks of being all-inclusive are requested. [ Samantha Orme ]
  • One of the core principles behind microformats is the reuse of existing standards. hCard, for example, is almost a 1:1 reimplimentation of the vcard standard. The proposal that we base this format on citation raises the question: is it better to reuse an existing microformat or to reuse some purpose built format (like CDWA)? --TimG
    • The existence of existing-classes suggests that we're supposed to reuse existing microformats first, before referring to purpose built formats. --TimG
    • Are museums more likely to adopt a standard that is easy to understand and read or one based on an existing standard designed for museums? --TimG
  • I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "extensions." If you mean informal extensions, I think we're better off not sanctioning them. The only fields that are going to be really useful (from a readers/parsers point of view) are the ones that are consistenly applied (the "core components" you propose). However, if you mean "extensions" like this microformat is an "extension" of the citation microformat (that is, developed using the microformats process), I agree completely. Your thoughts? --TimG

• A suggested starting point for the core components of work-of-art. Components are, where possible, either similar to those that are under consideration for inclusion in citation, or part of the Dublin Core. The Getty's Metadata Standards Crosswalk was also taken into consideration. Feedback is welcome.
• Questions:
  • Is some loss of semantic granularity an acceptable trade-off for microformat clarity? (i.e. should we combine components that would be distinct in a CDWA-based schema?)
    • I think the trade off is acceptable. In a nod toward this issue, CDWA makes a distinction between fields intended for indexing (more granular) and fields intended for display (more human friendly). In the CDWA strawman, I opted to use the human friendly/ less granular "display" fields. --TimG
  • Should creater information rely on an hCard extension for historical figures? It seems as though hCard with the addition of nationality, vital dates, gender, and role have utility in alternative contexts.
    • I think creator information should rely on hCard to the extent that hCard can already handle it. An hCard extension for historical figures would be very useful for us here, but I'd argue it's outside the scope of this microformat. What do you think? -- TimG

Component	Notes	Approximate CDWA equivalent
title		[Title or Names]
creator	(hCard)	[Creation-Creator]
creator-dates	(dates)	[vitalDatesCreator]
creator-nationality		[nationalityCreator]
creator-role		[roleCreator]
subject	(keywords)	[Subject Matter]
description		[Descriptive Note]
date	(date created OR earliest date)	[Creation-Date]
latest-date	(latest date)	[Creation-Date-Latest Date]
type	(genre/style)	[Classification] [Styles/Periods] [Object/Work Type]
format	(dimensions)	[Measurements]
medium	(media / techniques)	[Materials and Techniques]
identifier	(repository number / accession number)	[Current Location-Repository Numbers]
source	(current repository)	[Current Location-Repository Name]
source-location	(current repository location -- geo?)	[Current Location-Repository Location]
language
rights	(copyright information)	[Copyright/Restrictions]
provenance		[Ownership/Collecting History-Description]
series	(connect artworks that are part of a series)	[Related Works]

[ Samantha Orme ]

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