The problem with place

1
The problem with place

• The Moulds may change but the Jelly remains the
  same

2
The Jelly

• what do you do?
• we foindle and fungle, we bonkle and meigle and
• maxpoffle, we scotstarvit, armit, wormit, and
  even
• whifflet, we play at crosstobs, leuchars,
  gorbals, and
• finfan, we scavaig, and theres aye a bit of
  tilquhilly, if its wet treshnish and mishnish.
• Extract from
• Canedolia by Edwin Morgan.

3
Place types

• Physical features
• e.g. rivers, mountains etc.
• River Spey, Ben Cleuch
• Human topography
• Man-made physical features, principally inhabited
  places, but also roads etc
• Glasgow, Kylesku, The Slug Road
• Conceptual geography
• Counties, administrative areas etc
• Angus, Strathmiglo parish, Aberdeen Unitary
  Authority?

4
Problems with place 1

• Colloquiallism
• The essence of a place?
• The spoken word v historic textual record
• e.g. Glasguae Glascovia Cathures Glascovium
  Glascua Glascuensis Glascum Glasqua
  Glasquensis

5
Problems with place 2

• Time
• Name changes
• e.g. Striveling Stirling
• Name stays the same but geographic coverage
  changes
• Place ceases to exist
• Can a place cease to exist?

6
Problems with place 3

• Language
• Translation and back again
• e.g. Callanish Callanais
• Transliteration
• Toponymic homonyms
• 468 Hoseynabads in Iran!

7
Examples

• Bunnahabhain or Bonavon?
• HOYK
• Strachan
• Ineloid, Ineloid
• Inchina Inchina
• Isle of Amron

8
The (most common) Moulds

• Library of Congress Subject Headings.
• Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names.
• British Museum/Home grown subject headings.

9
LCSH examples

• Place (Qualifier) Subject Form
• Glasgow (Scotland) - ? Maps.
• Subject Qualifier Place
• Roads Scotland Glasgow

10
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) 1

• Strengths
• Widely used
• Extensively documented
• Consistent
• Gathers under most recent place name
• Easy to use
• with MARC

• Weaknesses
• Non-local heading creation
• Unweildy headings
• Not intuitive for user or cataloguer
• Lack of historical awareness

11
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) 2

• Opportunities
• Truly global?
• Addition of coordinates to authority records

• Threats
• Wikipedia as authority!
• Too big too many users - inconsistent

12
TGN examples

• Hierarchical structure
• World Europe United Kingdom Scotland
  Glasgow Unitary Authority.
• World Europe United Kingdom Scotland
  Glasgow Glasgow Inhabited Place.

13
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) 1

• Strengths
• Intuitive headings
• Easy to use
• Designed for graphic media so suits maps
• International use in cultural sector
• Current and historical headings

• Weaknesses
• Unfamiliar to library users
• Long strings can be unweildy
• Inconsistency between preferences
• No subject/topic

14
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) 2

• Opportunities
• Partnership working with other cultural
  institutions

• Threats

15
Local heading examples

• Place Subject Date Form
• Glasgow 1878 Plans
• Glasgow Roads 1999 - Atlases

16
British Museum / Home-grown subject headings 1

• Strengths
• Names in local use
• Collection specific
• Continuity with card catalogue
• General subject access
• Date of content

• Weaknesses
• No authority self-referencing
• Inconsistent
• Unfamiliar to all users
• Keyword searching in OPAC only lack of string
  display

17
British Museum / Home-grown subject headings 2

• Opportunities
• Easy to add places and topics
• Simple to use

• Threats
• Special fields in LMS
• Expense
• Development
• Lack of support

18
Geo-referencing

• The process of delimiting a given object, either
  physical or conceptual in terms of its
  spatial relationship to the land the geographic
  thus established consists of points, lines, areas
  or volumes defined in terms of some coordinate
  system.
• www.geog.ubc.ca/courses/klink/gisnotes/glossary.ht
  ml

19
Subject landscapes

• Artefacts with physical locations
• Clusters
• Maps of subject holdings
• Imagined subject themed landscapes

20
National Library of Scotland

• Map Library
• 33 Salisbury Place
• Edinburgh
• EH9 1SL
• 0131 623 3970
• maps_at_nls.uk