Cataloging What Mary Saw

Dublin Core schema was utilized as the cataloging schema for this Omeka S site, renaming the elements when deemed necessary. All works can be viewed on the "What Mary Saw" page and are ordered chronolocially by the date Mary Berenson saw them. Tags were utilized to distinguish the works Mary approved of from the works she disliked from the works about which she had no opinion. Individual tags are present at the bottom of each work's page, and the tags can be accessed directly at the bottom of the "What Mary Saw" page through the "Mary Approves!", "Mary Dislikes", and "No Opinion" links. These designations were assigned based on the associated quote from Mary's diary, which are included in the "Quote from Diary" element on each work's page. For the purposes of this project, all images are included on this site under the allowances of fair use.

The Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Library of Congress Name Authority File (NAF), Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM), and Library of Congres Subject Headings (LCSH), were the authories used to assign values to the Creator, Current Collection, Mural Location, Subject, Materials, Form, and Genre/Style elements. The authority used for the "Subject" element is "LC: All Authorities" because it was beneficial to be able to assign both LCNAF and LCSH values to that element. In an effort to link to Wikidata, the "Depicts" element has no vocabulary associated with it through the resource template, but all values for that element are Wikidata URIs. Included after the "Discussion of the Project" section, please find a more detailed explanation of the elements, descriptions, and data types used to catalog the works on this site.

ELEMENTS • DESCRIPTIONS • DATA TYPES:

Title: Title of work from cataloging source. Required metadata element. Data type: string ("en")
Identifier: Unique numeric identifier for each item. Required metadata element. Data type: string ("en" not required since this is a numbers rather than language-based field)
Creator: Creator of work from cataloging source. Required metadata element. Data type: URI (The Getty Union List of Artist Names, chosen to be able to work with a name authority for people primarily connected with the arts, rather than the more general LC Name Authority File)
Date Created: Date of work from cataloging source, placed in brackets if exact date unknown. Required metadata element. Data type: string ("en")
Extent: Dimensions of work from cataloging source, repeated if both "framed" and "unframed" dimensions provided. Included as metadata element because dimensions were commonly provided in original information sources. Data type: string ("en")
Is Part Of: Current collection to which work belongs, for painting only. Data type: URI (LC: Name Authority File chosen to practice using the LC Name Authority File, since Getty ULAN was utilized for the "Creator" element.)
Source: URL of image and cataloging information source. Required metadata element. Data type: URL followed by string ("en")
Rights: Image rights statement from cataloging information source. Required metadata element. Data type: string ("en") and/or URL
Date Valid: Date of diary entry where Mary Berenson mentioned seeing the work of art. Included in order to be able to chronologically order the items on the "What Mary Saw" page, and could be increasingly useful for data analysis when additional items are added. Data type: string ("en")
Abstract: Quote from Mary Berenson's diary pertaining to the work. This metadata element was included to be able to contextualize Mary's experience as well as to categorize if whether Mary approved, disliked, or had no opinion of a work of art. Data type: string ("en")
Provenance: Applicable provenance statement from cataloging source. This metadata was included if there was an existing provenance statement that could provide more context and/or proof of what Mary wrote in her diary about a certain work. Data type: string ("en")
Spatial Coverage: Institutional location of mural. Included as an opportunity to practice use with the LC Name Authority File, as well as to present a present-day connection to the works that Mary saw. Data type: URI (LC: Name Authority File, chosen to mirror the "Current Location" element, but for murals.)
Relation: Series to which a mural belongs. Included to provide context of all of the murals Mary would have seen on a given date, even though only one of the murals may be included as an item on this Omeka S site. Data type: string ("en") or titled URL.
depicts: Identifiable persons or entities the work depicts. Included in order describe the content of a work through Panofsky's "identification" level of meaning in subject analysis. Data type: URI (Wikidata. In order to select more specific persons or entities than available in LC Name Authority file, Wikidata was used as the controlled vocabulary for this element. )
Subject: What the work is of or about. Required metadata element. Data type: URI (LC: All Authorities, all authorities selected as the vocabulary because the broadest selection available was desired to be able to fully express the more complex task of subject analysis.)
Medium: Materials used in creation of work. Included to provide additional details on the various works of art. Data type: URI (Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, selected because it had more specific terms for just the materials themselves rather than the less atomized terms like "oil painting" available in other vocabularies)
Format: What the work is. Primarily included as a method to differentiate murals from paintings. Data type: URI (LC: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials, chosen to be able to learn how the Getty AAT and LC TGN differ)

Item sets: What Mary Saw

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