[MEI-L] history of sources / items

Roland, Perry D. (pdr4h) pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu
Fri Apr 4 16:35:09 CEST 2014


We crossed the Rubicon into the Land of Schematron a long time ago, but I think non-schematron alternatives should be examined first.  If a situation can be handled without resorting to a second-level of parsing, it's better in my opinion.  But, I also recognize the usefulness of contextual rules.  So, if history/provenance is the consensus, it's fine with me.

Regarding the model of <annot> (and by extension, <bibl> and even <history>), I must say that I don't see it as a "problem".  If some uses of <annot> require unstructured (prose) and others more structured content, that's ok -- the latter can be conceived of as a subset of the first and can be easily accommodated, by formal or informal means; that is, by creation of a customization that enforces the use of a subset of the content of <annot> or just agreeing not to use the elements that aren't useful.

I'm not sure the creation of <annotStruct> is a good idea or even possible.  What should a structured annotation look like?  Wouldn't each project/use case have a different take on that?  Where does this stop -- will we have <history> and <historyStruct>?

<annot> is the equivalent to the TEI <note> element and there's no structured TEI <note> that I'm aware of.  If there are specialized uses for <annot>, then they should be examined on a case-by-case basis and specialized elements created (with unstructured or structured content as necessary).  I'm not sure if it's stated explicitly in the Guidelines, but this approach is inherent in the structure of MEI itself (that's what all those <classSpec> elements are for!) and the use of ODD.

I have similar thoughts about <bibl> and <biblStruct>.  It's my experience that the usefulness of <biblStruct> is inversely proportion to the amount of structure imposed by it.  Even so, I can see the utility of a data-centric <bibl> element, but it's not something I want to take on right now.  Any volunteers?

--
p.


__________________________
Perry Roland
Music Library
University of Virginia
P. O. Box 400175
Charlottesville, VA 22904
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
________________________________________
From: mei-l [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of Axel Teich Geertinger [atge at kb.dk]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2014 7:48 AM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] history of sources / items

Hi Johannes

If relying on schematron to avoid confusion or abuse is acceptable, +1 for the structure you are suggesting.
Also +1 for making <history> div-like as Perry suggests.

/axel

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: mei-l [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] På vegne af Johannes Kepper
Sendt: 4. april 2014 13:22
Til: Music Encoding Initiative
Emne: Re: [MEI-L] history of sources / items

Hi Axel,

thanks for this statement. It ensures me of my own doubts about the current solution. I agree that for items (and / or sources, depending on the use of FRBR), <history> should be the sum of transmission and creation / modifications to the item. The library stamps are just a physical manifestation of that, and we clearly want to link them to the corresponding information within the <provenance> element, but this doesn't turn the provenance of an item into a physical description. In TEI, <tei:provenance> is also a child of <tei:history> (which in turn is a child of the manuscript description <tei:msDesc>).

In sum, I guess I would prefer something like

item
        physDesc
        physLoc
        history
                provenance
                creation
                {other history content}

I left out the other elements available in all these places to keep this example simple. I fully understand Perry's warning about making provenance part of history, but we used Schematron in other places to prevent unwanted side effects like this, so I don't think this has to be a showstopper.

Regarding the data model suggestions by Perry, I think we may have to step back a bit and take a broader approach. The models of <annot> and various other elements are somewhat "undecided" from my perspective. Especially for <annot>, I know various projects that use it for structured data by typing its child elements. The model itself suggests prose content, though. I think we have a similar problem with <bibl>. What I would suggest is that we seek volunteers to identify all such cases. We should then (or maybe in advance) take a decision for a general approach to these questions. I'm in favor of having <annot> / <annotStruct> and <bibl> / <biblStruct> side by side, but that's only my personal take on this, and I'm open for arguments. In any case, I think we need a consistent behavior that should be explained somewhere in the Guidelines.

Best,
Johannes
Ceterum censeo, don't forget to discuss the MEI organization, either here on MEI-L or at http://bit.ly/1hDyq4X.


Am 04.04.2014 um 11:57 schrieb Axel Teich Geertinger <atge at kb.dk>:

> Hi Benjamin, Perry, & all
>
> I notice that <provenance> is a child of the manuscript description's <history> element in TEI. That does make sense to me, as the manuscript's history may roughly be divided into its creation and its transmission. However I see your point, Perry, that in our case, making <provenance> available within <history> would be nonsense in the context of work and expression (and possibly even in source, but only when using the FRBR module, in which case <provenance> belongs at item level).
> Provenance is related to both history and physical location, as it may be regarded as the item's historical record of physical locations or owners. That is why I brought it up in this <history> discussion, and also why I brought it up a couple of years ago in a discussion about <physLoc>. I am not sure I can see any can of worms hidden here, but of course I don't know what has been discussed elsewhere. My reason for starting the discussion back in December 2012 was that I noticed that <physLoc> was moved out of <physDesc> but <provenance> was not. I never understood why <provenance> was left in <physDesc>.
> I am perfectly aware, of course, that <physLoc> only describes an item's current location, not previous ones. I have no particular preferences whether <provenance> should be a child of <history>, <physLoc>, or be their sibling. The latter option may very well be the best solution, making <physLoc> and <provenance> siblings as they were originally, but now in the context of <source> or <item> instead of <physDesc>. In the physical description of an item, where it is now, provenance information appears - at least to me - even more out of place than the information on the item's current location.
> I am sorry if this opens some unwanted discussions, but actually I
> don't see this as very problematic, just as something we forgot :-)
>
> Best,
> Axel
>
>
> Fra: mei-l [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] På vegne af
> Benjamin Wolff Bohl
> Sendt: 4. april 2014 11:04
> Til: mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
> Emne: Re: [MEI-L] history of sources / items
>
> Dear all,
>
> not that I have too much experience in cataloguing sources or writing verbose source description, but it might help to have a look at the TEI way of doing things. Some nice example applications concerning manuscripts were presented during the Edirom-Summer-School 2013 by Torsten Schaßan.
>
> The Herzog August Bibliothek has their TEI code available on-line, see for example:
> http://diglib.hab.de/?db=mss&list=ms&id=27-2-aug-2f&catalog=Lesser&mod
> e=xml
>
> Just my to code-points ;-)
> Benjamin
>
> ***********************************************************
> Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar Detmold/Paderborn BMBF-Projekt
> "Freischütz Digital"
> Benjamin Wolff Bohl
> Gartenstraße 20
> D-32756 Detmold
>
> Tel. +49 (0) 5231 / 975-669
> Fax: +49 (0) 5231 / 975-668
> E-Mail: bohl at edirom.de
>
> http://www.freischuetz-digital.de
> ***********************************************************
> Am 03.04.2014 21:32, schrieb Joachim Veit:
> Dear Perry,
> thank you very much for these details and <annot type="naive">excuse my misunderstanding of the possibilities of "annotation"</annot>!!
> Indeed your proposal to transfer the possibiliies of <annot> to <history> would be excellent in my eyes because - at least in our case - the history will be so detailed that <annot> seems to be semantically inadequate (at least if we consent that the content of an essay should not be hidden in the footnotes but in the main text...;-) ).
> And with <div> we should have the opportunity to squeeze al things in which are hidden in the 27 corners of our project...
> Waiting for the discussion with Kristina and Johannes tomorrow,
> meanwhile with cordial thanks and best greetings, Joachim
>
>
> Am 03.04.14 17:59, schrieb Roland, Perry D. (pdr4h):
>
> Johannes and Joachim,
>
>
> Sometimes you have a copy, and you would like to tell the story behind
> it - why it has been copied, under which conditions it happened, etc. Basically, I want to get hold of <creation> for source (and maybe item, even though I think this might be less important). Of course, people may confuse the histories of works and sources, but this doesn't explain why there shouldn't be a source history in MEI. I understand your motivation better, but <creation> is not the thing you're looking for (ala Obi-wan Kenobi).  <creation> is intended to hold a *brief* statement of the circumstances of creation.  That's why it's content model is very restrictive:
>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:choice>
>      <rng:text/>
>      <rng:ref name="date"/>
>      <rng:ref name="geogName"/>
>    </rng:choice>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> It's nothing more than a string with <date> and <geogName> thrown in to capture important dates and places.  You could think of <creation> as the "quick and dirty" or "headline" version of the content that follows it.
>
> For more "essay-like" content, you can use the other possible children of history; i.e., eventList and p.
>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="model.headLike"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="creation"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:choice>
>      <rng:ref name="eventList"/>
>      <rng:ref name="p"/>
>    </rng:choice>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> But contrary to what Joachim said, the most "book-like" and least restrictive model is actually that of <annot>:
>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:choice>
>      <rng:text/>
>      <rng:ref name="model.textcomponentLike"/>
>      <rng:ref name="model.textphraseLike"/>
>      <rng:ref name="model.editLike"/>
>      <rng:ref name="model.transcriptionLike"/>
>    </rng:choice>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> This allows just about everything under the sun!
>
> On the issue of <history>, what I hear you saying is that you'd like its content model to be more like that of <annot>, something like:
>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="model.headLike"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="creation"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:choice>
>      <rng:ref name="model.textcomponentLike"/>
>    </rng:choice>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> where the members of model.textcomponentLike are:
>
> lgLike - lg
> listLike - biblList, eventList, list
> pLike -p
> quoteLike - quote
> tableLike - table
>
> or perhaps
>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="model.headLike"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="creation"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:ref name="model.divLike"/>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> where the membership of model.divLike is just <div> and members of
> model.divLike and model.textcomponentLike are permitted as content of
> <div>
>
> or
>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="model.headLike"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:optional>
>    <rng:ref name="creation"/>
> </rng:optional>
> <rng:zeroOrMore>
>    <rng:choice>
>      <rng:ref name="model.divLike"/>
>      <rng:ref name="model.textcomponentLike"/>
>    </rng:choice>
> </rng:zeroOrMore>
>
> making <history> into a more div-Like container that can wrap other components and divs (which is how you can get section headings).
>
> These modifications will also address your need to include a list of bibliographic citations within <history>.
>
> Going farther, we could even drop <creation> from <history>, moving any content in former versions of MEI to subordinate <p> elements.  This would eliminate the privileging of data-like uses of <creation>.
>
>
> I still think that <history> might be a better parent for <provenance>
> than <physDesc>. We agree that the provenance of an item is not part of the physical description, do we? I'm not saying we must move it to history, but I wonder if we could, possibly with additional means to prevent it from showing up on work and expression. <physDesc> was a convenient place to locate <provenance> since in library land, as Joachim confirms, "provenance> often has clear connections with <physDesc> because stamps and librarian's or auctioneer's entries are often mentioned in this context."  But there's no reason why it should remain there if there's a compelling reason to move it.
>
> We could move <provenance> up a level into <item> itself rather than placing it inside <history> and then making <history> available inside <item>.  Taking this approach would put <provenance> where it needs to be (on <item>) and not everywhere <history> can occur; that is, <work>, <expression>, and <source> (should we decide to allow <history> there too).  It also maintains separation between the history of "handing down" (quoting Joachim) of the item and the production history of the item, which is the proper content for <item>/<history>.
>
> Does this help?
>
> --
> p.
>
> __________________________
> Perry Roland
> Music Library
> University of Virginia
> P. O. Box 400175
> Charlottesville, VA 22904
> 434-982-2702 (w)
> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
> ________________________________________
> From: mei-l [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of
> Johannes Kepper [kepper at edirom.de]
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 9:26 AM
> To: Music Encoding Initiative
> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] history of sources / items
>
> Am 03.04.2014 um 15:10 schrieb Roland, Perry D. (pdr4h) <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>:
>
>
> Johannes,
>
> Sorry for arriving late to the party.  :-)
>
> The <history> element wasn't provided in source (manifestation) and item in order to encourage the use of work/history or expression/history.  The assumption was that what folks often have to say about a manifestation or item is really about the work and expression anyway.
> Sometimes you have a copy, and you would like to tell the story behind
> it - why it has been copied, under which conditions it happened, etc.
> Basically, I want to get hold of <creation> for source (and maybe
> item, even though I think this might be less important). Of course,
> people may confuse the histories of works and sources, but this
> doesn't explain why there shouldn't be a source history in MEI.
>
>
> A notesStmt/annot element (perhaps with a label of "history" in this case) can be used as a "catch all" to capture any information not easily shoe-horned into the other available elements in work, expression, source, and item.  But, since the models of source and item are essentially lists of optional children, it's also not difficult to add <history> in all these places without creating any backwards compatibility problems.  Before doing so, however, I'd like to know more about what you'd like to say about source and/or item history that makes this necessary.
>
> I'm not in favor of moving <provenance> inside <history> because doing this would mean breaking compatibility.  It would also make provenance available inside work, expression, and source (e.g., work/history/provenance) where its presence could lead to abuse.  What exactly is the provenance (that is, the custodial history) of a work or expression?  I don't there is such a thing.
> Well, I see your point, and I agree with that. There is certainly no
> provenance of a work or expression. The kind of information someone
> would be looking for is about the transmission of the work, which
> should go into history. However, I still think that <history> might be
> a better parent for <provenance> than <physDesc>. We agree that the
> provenance of an item is not part of the physical description, do we?
> I'm not saying we must move it to history, but I wonder if we could,
> possibly with additional means to prevent it from showing up on work
> and expression.
>
>
> I don't understand what problem you're having with <bibl> inside <source>.  Are you looking to provide bibliographic citations for whatever arguments you present in <history>?  I need more information, please.
> I have no problem with bibl inside source, except that it isn't
> allowed. I'd like to be able to put in literature about a specific
> source (like a review of a printed edition etc.), that's it. The
> current means to get a bibl into source seem to be too complicated.
>
> Hth,
> Johannes
> Ceterum censeo, don't forget to discuss the MEI organization, either here on MEI-L or at http://bit.ly/1hDyq4X.
>
>
>
> --
> p.
>
> __________________________
> Perry Roland
> Music Library
> University of Virginia
> P. O. Box 400175
> Charlottesville, VA 22904
> 434-982-2702 (w)
> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
> ________________________________________
> From: mei-l [mei-l-bounces+pdr4h=virginia.edu at lists.uni-paderborn.de]
> on behalf of Johannes Kepper [kepper at edirom.de]
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 5:16 AM
> To: Music Encoding Initiative
> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] history of sources / items
>
> I was hoping to get a reply from Perry, especially since I think this dates back to the days before FRBR, when there were work and source elements. expression and item just inherited their standard models with little modifications, so I'm not surprised about their behavior.
>
> However, I also prefer to add a history element to source and item,
> and moving provenance in there seems like a logical modification then.
> I wouldn't worry too much about backward compatibility. I think we're
> past the point where we'd have to make huge changes to the model, and
> little modifications should require only little modifications in
> software. Also, providing a XSLT to go back and forth between MEI2013
> and MEI201x is not an issue, so that people could use whatever is most
> appropriate to them. This might result in putting the history
> somewhere nested into a notesStmt when going back to 2013, but so be
> it.
>
> I remember discussions about structured vs. prose-based content models for a number of elements, among them bibl and annot. Does this relate to the initial question, and should we revise it as well?
>
>
> Johannes
> Ceterum censeo, don't forget to discuss the MEI organization, either here on MEI-L or at http://bit.ly/1hDyq4X.
>
>
>
> Am 03.04.2014 um 02:50 schrieb Eleanor Selfridge-Field <esfield at stanford.edu>:
>
>
> "Provenance" is a standard item in catalogues of works in manuscript,
> but it has a range of meanings, all of which might comfortable fit
> within "history".  It sometimes identifies previously owners but
> equally often it refers to a physical location (city, institution,
> performing group et al.).
>
> Eleanor
>
> Eleanor Selfridge-Field
> Consulting Professor, Music (and, by courtesy, Symbolic Systems) Braun
> Music Center #129 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-3076, USA
> http://www.stanford.edu/~esfield/  +1/ 650 725-9242
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mei-l [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] On Behalf Of
> Johannes Kepper
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 2:39 AM
> To: Music Encoding Initiative
> Subject: [MEI-L] history of sources / items
>
> Dear list,
>
> while discussing the upcoming Weber Werkverzeichnis (Weber's work
> catalogue) with Kristina Richts and Joachim Veit, I can't remember why
> we dropped the <history> element from sources and items? We have it on
> works and expressions, but not on these two. However, it might be
> interested to write something about the creation of a source (which is
> not the same as the provenance, which is available). Can someone
> please remind me of our argument to drop it? Otherwise, it would be a
> fault that we might want to correct.
>
> Btw., <bibl> seems to be equally hidden (you can get it from source at
> source/physDesc/physMedium/bibl.).
>
> Best,
> Johannes
>
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