Adam Retter

adam@evolvedbinary.com
 

Project OMEGA
The National Archives @ Online
2021-04-07


@adamretter

What is a Record?

Things we need to think about

  • Levels

  • The Record vs. Records's Arrangement

  • Inheritance

  • Tree vs. Graph

  • Denormalisation

    • Versioning / Provenance

Levels

  • TNA-CS13 / ISAD(G) has "Levels"

    • ... of Arrangement???

  • 7 Levels in Use at TNA (for physical records)

    1. Department

    2. Division (optional)

    3. Series

    4. Sub-series (optional)

    5. Sub-sub-series (optional)

    6. Piece

    7. Item (optional*)

The Record vs. Record's Arrangement

  • What is a Record?

    • Is an Item a Record?

    • Is a Piece a Record?

      • Is a Piece a Record when it has Item(s), or is it then a unit of Arrangement?

  • What about:

    • Sub-sub-series?

    • Sub-series?

    • Series?

    • Division?

    • Department?

  • ICA RiC says: RecordSet, Record, and RecordPart

Inheritance

  • Some (Meta)Data Elements are inherited downwards

    • Specification - in TNA-CS13

    • Implementation - Normalisation in ILDB

  • e.g. Immediate Source of Acquisition (ISoA)

    • May be expressed at levels: Department, Division, Series, Sub-series, Sub-subseries, Piece

    • Presentation: Start at level n, work upwards (n-1) until an entry for a level is found.

    • Example, Item: AIR 28 2904/1

      • Department ISoA: "from 1960"

      • Series ISoA: ", from 1974"

      • NOTE: for presentation/understanding, Series level is used as it is the lowest-level
        (i.e. closest to the Item)

Tree vs. Graph

Tree vs. Graph

  • Are these properties about the Record or the Record Set?

Tree vs. Graph

Denormalisation

What is a Record?

By Adam Retter

What is a Record?

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