ALEG

• Introduction
• Introduction continued - The Topic Map Approach
• Event Entity
• Work Type Topics
• Form Topics
• Genre Topics
• Concept Topics
• Object Topics
• Spatial Topics
• Temporal Topics
• Organisation Topics
• Nationality/Identity Topics
• Vocation Topics

Introduction

This document attempts to enumerate the major topics recorded in ALEG and the relationships between them and the the major ALEG entities (agent, work, expression, manifestation) providing some specific requirements behind the notions and visualisations outlined in the introduction to relationships document.

A companion document describes the relationships between the major entities.

Introduction continued - The Topic Map Approach

The approach being taken, at least for this logical model (which is attempting to describe an abstract, idealised, canonical, "perfect" view of the ALEG data), is to assume that attributes and relationships of data entities can be represented as topics. These topics can be absolutely anything at all - anything that ALEG decides is worth recording.

Topics can be linked together to form associations. For example, the topic "Horsham" could be linked to the topic "Victoria", which in turn could be linked to the topic "Australia". The linking association can be of a type (also a topic!), such as "is part of" in the above example.

Topics each have a "topic type", eg, "town" for "Horsham", "state" for "Victoria", "country" for "Australia". You probably guessed that these 'topic types" are just topics as well!

The name of two topics may be the same, but they may be differentiated by topic type and relationships. For example, the system may record another topic named "Victoria", but that topic may have type of "city" and be associated with ('is part of') a topic "British Columbia" (which in turn is of type 'province').

For more information on Topic Maps, refer to the references listed in the brief introduction to Topic Maps in the ALEG Data Model introduction.

But there are two important points worth emphasing:

1. Topic Maps are completely extensible. Topics can be added, just as words in a thesaurus can be added.

2. The semantics (or 'meanings') behind the associations between the topics can be defined to the system in such a way that the system can use them to infer relationships not directly defined. For example, imagine a novel was given a subject of the "Horsham" topic, as defined above. From that assignment and:

   • the system's knowledge that "Horsham" is associated with the "Victoria" topic by the "part of" association, and

   • the system's knowledge of what "part of" actually means (ie, containment)

   the system can include that novel in a response to a query "show me all novels set in Victoria".

Going further and allowing more flexability, rather than linking "Horsham" to "Victoria", we could instead:

• define a new topic "Wimmera" of type "region"
• link "Horsham" to "Wimmera" by an "is part of" association
• link "Wimmera" to "Victoria" by an "is part of" association

Now, if the 'fundamental' ALEG entities such as agent and work are linked to "Horsham" (by perhaps "was born in" and "subject of" associations), then the system can answer questions such as "which authors born in the Wimmera region produced works about the Wimmera region", and authors and works will be returned regardless of whether the ascribed place of birth or subject was "Horsham", "Stawell", "Nhill" or, directly, "Wimmera".

As well, if the system knowns that the 'is part of' relationship is transitive (ie, if we know that "A is part of B, and that B is part of C, then we can infer that A must be part of C"), then the system can also find agents born in Victoria and works about Victoria by following the trail from Horsham to the Wimmera to Victoria (well almost - see note just below..).

The following diagram extends the concept even further, by adding the regions "Western Victoria" and "Rural Victoria" (some of the implied 'born in" and 'is part of' relationships which have been omitted for clarity!):

Note:

---

The 'is part Of' relationship described above is about to be abandoned in this document. "Is part of" is unfortunately ambiguous in everyday speech and can be used to imply a symmetry which does not exist. For example, someone may say "The Great Dividing Range is part of NSW", and even "NSW is part of the Great Dividing Range", and people would understand what they meant. But this representation of the relationship doesn't help us imply anything about an event which might have happened in NSW as to whether it also happened in the Great Dividing Range (we need to know where in NSW it happened), and vica versa.

So, 'is part of' is replaced by 'isContainedWithin' in the more formal specification of relationships below. 'IsContainedWithin' really allows us to apply the transitive operation described above without ambiguity.

---

A challenge for Topic Map designers is to come up with a set of topics which allows maximum 'bang for the buck': too many topics which people don't use or find confusing is a waste of resources; too few topics and perhaps the required granuality and grouping is not delivered.

For example, in the above Topic Map fragment:

• It is probably a good idea to link Jane Feroka's birth with Horsham, rather than Wimmera, or Rural Victoria, because that is what people would expect, and the other birth relationships are implied anyway by the Topic Map itself

• Wimmera and Mallee are probably good topics (!? in my inexpert judgement anyway), but does Western Victoria add any value? It is simple to add, just requiring a few links to other regions, but does it clarify or confuse? Similarly, is "Rural Victoria" a useful topic? Presumably, this creates a dichotomy with "Urban Victoria" (but does "Urban Victoria" consist solely of Melbourne? what about Frankston and Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, Wodondga?)

• A Topic Map is only useful if users find it useful. How would the above be presented to the user who wanted to search for authors based on where they were born? As a hierarchical 'tree'?

  

  This is showing only a tiny proportion of the 'spatial' topics related to Victoria, and already it has an overwhelming, out-of-control feel to it. Some of this could be addressed by not repeating information everywhere - for example, by only showing the Wimmera towns under the strict Victoria / Rural Victoria / Western Victoria / Wimmera hierarchy, but would users know or care to 'dig' that deep?

  MLA: no !

  Other visualisations are possible (and I'd like to corral discussion of visualisation elsewhere), buit we need to be aware of the impact that our choices on Topic Map structures will have on how users access the information in the system.

  [Judith Pearce drew my attention to this specialised use of spatial information which allows you to drill down on a map to find libraries: http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/libraries/ ]

Event Entity

Events store information about things which have happened which can and usually are associated with a date or date range:

• A person's birth
• A person's death
• A person's occupation, residience or travel
• The creation of a work, expression or manifestation
• etc..

Events involve one or more entities/topics.

Event types are themselves 'topics' in the ALEG topic map. And, instances of events are also topics. The instance of the event becomes a topic by inheriting the topic type from the type of the event, and the topic name is contructed automatically based on the topics referenced in the event. For example, the "Birth" event below would have a topic type of "Event, sub-type Birth" and a topic name of "Birth of 'White, Patrick' on 28 May 1912 at Knightsbridge {London, England} ".

Patrick White - The Early Years
A few events sourced from http://www.nobel.se/laureates/literature-1973-1-autobio.html

All Event have a 'Notes' attribute which is not shown below.

1. birth

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • temporal topic (date or year) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: where

   Note - a person can have at most one birth event

2. death

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • temporal topic (date or year) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: where

   Note - a person can have at most one death event

3. visited

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: where

4. migrated

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • temporal topic (date or year) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: from
   • spatial topic (any) - role: to

5. resided

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: where

6. influence

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person, organisation - role: influenceOn
   • person, work, concept, object, spatial, temporal, organisation - role: influencedBy
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when

7. occupation

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person - role: who
   • vocation topic - role: what
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when

     MLA: multiple? could be poet & butcher?
     KF: yes - this document should say which events can be multiple (most) and which can't (birth, death....)

8. association

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person, organisation - role: who1
   • person, organisation - role: who2
   • associationType topic - role: what
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when

9. creation/realisation/embodiment

   Linked entities/topics:

   • person, organisation - role: who1
   • work, expression, manifestation - role: what (input)
   • work, expression, manifestation - role: what (output)
   • creationType topic - role: how
   • temporal topic (date or year, may be range) - role: when
   • spatial topic (any) - role: where

   Works are "created", Expressions are "realised" and Manifestations are "embodied". Within these creationType topics are subtopics such as 'translated', 'abridged', 'adapted', 'illustrated'.

   Some acts of creation will not have an "input" - for example, the creation of "Voss" the work probably doesn't have any (discernable) input work. Others will - for example, the creation of the work, "Voss the Opera" would have "Voss the novel" as an input, and a creationType of "adapted".

Work Type Topics

This classification is applied to a work to identify works which are in various ways "collections" containing other works, or an extract of another work,

There is only one "work type" topic type: workType.

The topics of type workType are fully enumerated as follows:

• collection

  broader term for these workType topics:

  • Collected Works
  • Selected Works (including "omnibus")
  • Anthology (including "back-to-back" novels by different authors)
  • Series (typically used for works which are novels)
  • Sequence (typically used for works which are not novels)
  • Manuscript Collection
  • Periodical (isPreferredFor Serial)
  • Periodical Issue (isPreferredFor Serial Issue)
  • Extract (only if the extract is from a work which has not yet appeared; if the work has already appeared then the extract is just an expression of the existing work, not a work in its own right)
  • Website

  When a work is a collection, it would be expected that it will have relationships with other works which 'make up' the collection:

  • collected Works, Selected Works, Anthologies:

    the component works' manifestations will have a 'partOf' relationship with the collection's manifestation. This relationship will record where each component work's manifestation appears within the collection (usually page references)

  • Series/Sequence:

    the component works will have a 'partOfSeries'/ 'partOfSequence' relationship with the series/sequence work

  • Manuscript Collection:

    the component works will have a 'partOfManuscriptCollection' relationship with the Manuscript Collection (note: indexing of Manuscript Collection components will not be common in ALEG as RAAM is the preferred database for documenting manuscript collections.

  • Periodical:

    the component works, which will always be of work type "Periodical Issue", will be have a 'issueOfPeriodical' relationship with the periodical

  • Periodical Issue:

    the component works' manifestations will have a 'partOfPeriodicalIssue' relationship with the periodical issue's manifestation. This relationship will record where each component work's manifestation appears within the periodical issue (usually page references).

Notes:

• Website - the idea here is to allow ALEG to record websites which are not just alternative manifestations of an expression and work (as this could be done with appropriate attributes at the manifestation level), but which are works in themselves (a bit like an anthology or collected/selected works)
  MLA: Perhaps a website is more like a manuscript collection than anything else! Ie,we are unlikely to 'fully index' the 'contents' of websites but want to point to their existence...

• Works forming part of a series or sequence do not have any special 'workType' topic. Instead, their status as part of a series or sequence is identified by them having a 'partOfSeries'/'partOfSequence' relationship with the series/sequence.

• A work which forms part of a series or sequence may itself have a 'workType' topic or "series" or "sequence", hence allowing for 'nested" sequences/series.

• Extracts

  There are two types of extract:

  1. Where a work has already appeared and then an extract is produced, the extract is just another expression of the work (linked to the work or another expression by an "extractOf" event/relationship).

  2. Where the work from which the extract is allegedly taken has not yet appeared, then a new work is created with a work type of "extract", no form or genre is assigned and an expression and manifestation is created.

     Subsequently, the full work may appear, in which case most probably the extract expression will be linked to the new work and the "extract work" will be deleted. Alternatively, it may be decided that the extract and the new work are sufficiently different, and the old extract work and expression would be left untouched (maybe linked to the new work in some 'relatedTo' way..)

• Serialised Work

  A work may be serialised one or more times. For each serialisation a special "serialisedManifestation" entity,is created which links to the details of the serialisation and has an ordered set of "partOfPeriodicalIssue" relationships with the Periodical Issues manifestations in which it has been serialised. In the following example, the work "Oscar and Lucinda" has been serialised on two separate occassions. Work and expression entities have been conflated to save space in the diagram.

  
  

Form Topics

This classification is applied to a work to describe the "form" of the work. Some people may call this classification "genre", and the ALEG "genre" classification "sub-genre". Oh well.

There is only one "form" topic type: form.

The topics of type form are fully enumerated as follows:

• Drama
• Novel
• Short Story
• Poetry
• Picture Book
• Autobiography
• Essay
• Thesis
• Correspondence
• Criticism
• Article
• Review
• Obituary
• Biography
• Bibliography
• Column old, use will be deprecated
• Interview old, use will be deprecated

Notes:

• A work may be associated with zero, one or more forms. The system will allow mulitple forms to be ordered (that is, presented in an order specified by the indexer).

Genre Topics

This classification is applied to a work to describe the "genre" of the work. Some people may call this classification "sub-genre". Oh well (again).

There is only one "genre" topic type: genre.

The topics of type genre are fully enumerated as follows:

• Crime
• Fantasy
• Historical
• Humour
• Romance
• Satire
• Sci-Fi
• Travel
• War Literature
• Speculative
• Ficto-criticism
• Young Adult
• Children's

Notes:

• A work may be associated with zero, one or more genres. The system will allow mulitple genres to be ordered (that is, presented in an order specified by the indexer).

Concept Topics

Concept Topics represent abstract notions or ideas, eg: post-modernism, reconciliation, anger, desire, isolation, war.

Object Topics

Object Topics represent material things, eg: the Mir space station, the Crown Jewels, the Magna Carta.

(What about "The Lodge", "The Dog on the Tucker Box", "The Red Centre" - possible overlap with spatial topics and even concepts???)

Spatial Topics

These topics have a topic type of 'spatial':

1. transNationalRegion

   Examples:

   • The Seas and Oceans of the World
   • Tasman Sea
   • Pacific Ocean
   • Oceania
   • South East Asia
   • Europe
   • Himalayas

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • transNationalRegion isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • country isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • city isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • town isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • region isContainedWithin transNationalRegion

   Relationships Examples:

   • Tasman Sea isContainedWithin Pacific Ocean
   • Pacific Ocean isContainedWithin The Seas and Oceans of the World
   • Nepal isContainedWithin Himalayas
   • Himalayas isContainedWithin Asia
   • The Hindu Kush isContainedWithin Asia
   • San Fransisco isContainedWithin The Rim of Fire
   • New Zealand isContainedWithin Australiasia

2. country

   Examples:

   • Australia
   • New Zealand
   • France
   • USSR (1919 - 1991)

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • country isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • state isContainedWithin country
   • city isContainedWithin country
   • town isContainedWithin country
   • region isContainedWithin country

   Relationships Examples:

   • Fiji isContainedWithin Oceanania
   • NSW isContainedWithin Australia
   • The Great Dividing Range isContainedWithin Australia

3. region

   Examples:

   • The Great Dividing Range
   • Wimmera
   • The Somme
   • The Blue Mountains
   • The Victorian Goldfields
   • Rural Australia
   • Coastal Australia
   • Outback Australia
   • South-East Australia

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • region isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • region isContainedWithin country
   • state isContainedWithin region
   • region isContainedWithin state
   • region isContainedWithin region
   • town isContainedWithin region

   Relationships Examples:

   • The Great Dividing Range isContainedWithin Australia
   • Tasmania isContainedWithin South-East Australia
   • Coastal NSW isContainedWithin South-East Australia
   • Coastal NSW isContainedWithin Coastal Australia
   • Leura isContainedWithin The Blue Mountains

4. state

   Examples:

   • NSW
   • Texas
   • Quebec

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • state isContainedWithin region
   • region isContainedWithin state
   • state isContainedWithin country
   • city isContainedWithin state
   • town isContainedWithin state

   Relationships Examples:

   • NSW isContainedWithin Eastern Australia
   • Coastal NSW isContainedWithin NSW
   • Sydney isContainedWithin NSW
   • Texas isContainedWithin USA

5. city

   Examples:

   • Sydney
   • Newcastle
   • Paris {France}
   • Paris {Texas}

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • city isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • city isContainedWithin region
   • city isContainedWithin country
   • city isContainedWithin state
   • suburb isContainedWithin city

   Relationships Examples:

   • Sydney isContainedWithin Coastal NSW
   • Sydney isContainedWithin NSW
   • Redfern isContainedWithin Sydney
   • Richmond {suburb, NSW} isContainedWithin Sydney (1980 - )
   • Paris {France} isContainedWithin France
   • Paris {Texas} isContainedWithin Texas

6. town

   Examples:

   • Paris {NSW}
   • Richmond {town NSW}
   • Yass
   • Queenstown {New Zealand}

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • town isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • town isContainedWithin region
   • town isContainedWithin country
   • town isContainedWithin state

   Relationships Examples:

   • Byron Bay isContainedWithin Coastal NSW
   • Leura isContainedWithin The Blue Mountains
   • Yass isContainedWithin NSW
   • Richmond {town, NSW} isContainedWithin NSW (- 1979)
   • Paris {NSW} isContainedWithin NSW
   • Queenstown {New Zealand} isContainedWithin New Zealand

7. suburb

   Examples:

   • Redfern
   • Richmond {suburb Sydney}
   • Richmod {suburb Melbourne}
   • Saint Germain

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • suburb isContainedWithin city

   Relationships Examples:

   • Richmond {suburb, Sydney} isContainedWithin Sydney (1980 - )
   • Redfern isContainedWithin Sydney
   • Richmond {suburb, Melbourne} isContainedWithin Melbourne
   • Saint Germain isContainedWithin Paris {France}

8. landmark

   Examples:

   • Uluru
   • Mount Ainslie
   • Sydney Opera House (too big to be an object? Maybe if you can say "meet you at the ..." then the "object" is a "spatial topic", but see next example..)
   • Dog on the Tucker-Box (hmm..is this an object?)

   Relationships with other spatial topics:

   • landmark isContainedWithin transNationalRegion
   • landmark isContainedWithin region
   • landmark isContainedWithin country
   • landmark isContainedWithin state
   • landmark isContainedWithin city
   • landmark isContainedWithin town
   • landmark isContainedWithin suburb

   Relationships Examples:

   • Sydney Opera House isContainedWithin Sydney
   • Uluru isContainedWithin Central Australia
   • Uluru isContainedWithin NT
   • Dog on the Tucker-Box isContainedWithin Rural NSW
   • Eiffel Tower isContainedWithin Paris {France}

Issues:

• anyone up for Mars, Jupiter, Tralfamadore, Crab Nebula, the 5th dimension, Astral planes... ?
• MLA just added "The Western Front"?
• Is the "Russian Federation" a country?
• Are we laying a geo-political minefield here?
• Are the "WWII allies" best represented as a group of countries or something not at all spatial (an organisation???)
  MLA: best not thinking about representing them.
• what about 'partial Containment', or 'non exclusively, forms part of', such as the relationship of NSW, Queensland and Victoria to the Great Dividing Range, or of Afganistan and Pakistan to the Hindu Kush?
• Province as synonym for State?
  MLA: no - this is an Australian system...
• What about 'landmarks' or something - thinking of Mt Ainslie, Uluru, The Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Randwick Racecourse. Maybe we need more than one topic type for these (natural, manmade, maybe monuments...)
• Supplementary Question on Landmarks - what is the dividing line between a landmark and just an ordinary old object? Uluru is squarely 'geographical' (well, maybe not - maybe 'spiritual'), Sydney Harbour Bridge and Mt Ainsle probably are also. But what about the 'Dog on the Tucker Box' (8 kilometers from Gundagi) or the Hubble Space Telescope?
• Grid references, latitude and longtitude...
• Doesn't include topics for describing ethnicity, because these may not be really spatial (Ancient Egyptian, Aboriginal tribes, Pacific Islanders, Jews, American Indians...) - so where will these topics appear? Cultures?
  MLA - concept topics

Relationships with other Topics

Other Topic	Spatial Topic	Relationship	Notes
Event	all	where
Work	all	subject
Work	all	setting

Temporal Topics

These topics have a topic type of 'temporal':

1. date

   Examples:

   • 21 October 1815

   Relationships with other temporal topics:

   • date isContainedWithin year (automatically inferred)

   Relationships Examples:

   • 21 October 1815 isContainedWithin 1815

2. year

   Examples:

   • 1815

   Relationships with other temporal topics:

   • date isContainedWithin year (automatically inferred)
   • year isContainedWithin decade (automatically inferred)
   • year isContainedWithin era (automatically inferred)

   Relationships Examples:

   • 1815 isContainedWithin 1811-1820

3. decade

   Examples:

   • 1811-1820

   Relationships with other temporal topics:

   • year isContainedWithin decade (automatically inferred)
   • decade isContainedWithin century (automatically inferred)

   Relationships Examples:

   • 1811-1820 isContainedWithin 1801-1900

4. century

   Examples:

   • 1801-1900

   Relationships with other temporal topics:

   • decade isContainedWithin century (automatically inferred)

   Relationships Examples:

   • 1815 isContainedWithin 1811-1820

5. era

   An era is a named year range. Bounding years are inclusive.

   Examples:

   • World War II (1939-1945)
   • The Great Depression (1929-1941)
   • The Victorian Gold Rush(1852 - 1859)
   • The Whitlam Years (1972-1975)
   • The Renaisance (? - ?)

   Relationships with other temporal topics:

   • era isContainedWithin bounding decade or century (automatically inferred)
   • year isContainedWithin era (automatically inferred)

   Relationships Examples:

   • 1939 isContainedWithin World War II
   • 1939 isContainedWithin The Great Depression
   • The Whitlam Years isContainedWith 1971-1980 (decade: the 1970's)

Relationships with other Topics

Other Topic	Temporal Topic	Relationship	Notes
Event (all)	all	when
Work (Manuscript Collection)	year (range)	dateRange	documents the date range of material in the manuscript collection
Work	all	subject
Work	all	setting

Organisation Topics

Nationality/Identity Topics

Vocation Topics

There is only one "vocation" topic type: vocation

Examples:

• actor, admiral, aide-de-camp, autioneer, novelist, poet,...

  The NLA RAAM site defines a list of occupations which we could take as a starting point. However, it is probably desirable to group into broader/narrower terms using topic map relationships; for example, to group into a new vocation term 'creative writer' the vocations 'poet', 'novelist', 'dramatist', 'lyricist' (?) and maybe into a new vocation term 'person of the cloth' the vocations 'bishop', 'cardinal', 'guru', 'clergy', ...

  MLA: think we can make this decision on the same lines as thesaurus decisions

Relationships with other vocation topics:

• isBroaderThan
• seeAlso
• isPreferredFor

Relationships Examples:

• creative writer isBroaderThan poet
• novelist isPreferredFor story writer
• pharamists isPreferredFor chemist (retail)
• medical practitioner isBroaderThan doctor
• doctor seeAlso surgeon

Relationships with other Topics

Other Topic	Vocation Topic	Relationship	Notes
Event (occupation)	all	what