Glossary

This is a list of terms pertaining to CollectionSpace.  It includes terms relevant to collections management as well as the CollectionSpace application. The CollectionSpace User Manual provides a more complete overview of the application's user interface.

Glossary

Acquisition: Documenting and managing the addition of objects and associated information to the collections of the organization and their possible accession to the permanent collections.

Application layer: The Application Layer within CollectionSpace connects CollectionSpace to outside content sources, applications, or plugins from a single point of entry, without ‘touching’ the underlying services. The Application Layer orchestrates calls to services; translate responses between the preferred format for interoperability and openness, as implemented by services, into one more suited to the User Interface; and provides a repository for configuration and a location for extensibility.

Authority: An authority is a "compilation of authorized terms or headings used by a single organization or consortium in cataloging, indexing, or documentation." An authority is a local construct - it may be a single vocabulary, or it may be made up of one or more vocabularies (e.g. an organization's Name Authority may be a combination of a local list and an outside source such as the Getty's Union List of Artist Names). An authority may be flat or hierarchical, and may or may not support relationships among terms. See the Vocabulary and Authority Overview for an extended discussion of authority use in collecting institutions.

Calendar date: A specific day, month, and year.

Cataloging: The compilation and maintenance of key information, formally identifying and describing objects. It need not bring together in one location everything known about an object, but should provide cross-references to any other relevant information source known to the organization.

Collection object: A physical or digital object (such as a cuneiform tablet, a dried plant specimen, or a digital video recording), that is considered to be an object in the collection(s) of the organization, and given its own cataloging record. Intended to provide somewhat more specificity than the generic term "object." May also sometimes be written as "collectionobject".

Common Schema: The base schema built into the CollectionSpace application.  The Common Entity Schema is strongly influenced by the SPECTRUM standard from Collections Trust, but has variations that are not in SPECTRUM.

Controlled list: "A controlled list (also sometimes called a pick list or term list) is a limited set of terms arranged as a simple alphabetical list or in some other logically evident way. Lists are used to describe aspects of content objects or entities that have a limited number of possibilities. Examples include language (e.g., English, French, Swedish), or format (e.g., text, image, sound)." See Controlled List Requirements for more information. (Definition from: ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005).

Deaccession: Formally removing an object from the collection. Objects may be removed for various reasons (e.g. no longer fitting a collecting policy, something no longer working), and via various methods (transfer to another institution, sale, etc.).

Domain Schema Extension: Fields layered onto the Common Schema in the context of a Procedure or Authority that are specific to a type of museum.  For example, in the variable media domain there is a schema extension for the cataloging Procedure (adding cataloging terms that are specific to a variable media museum) and one for the condition check Procedure (likewise).  All schema extensions for a particular domain are collectively referred to as a Domain Schema Extension Set.  In the specific example above, it would be the Variable Media Schema Extension Set.

Deployment Schema Extension: Fields relevant only to an implementing institution.  For instance, a field in the acquisitions Procedure called "Director's Mother's Deep Thoughts".

Field: A field in CollectionSpace represents a single unit of information, such as a donor name, object description, or loan return date. Fields may have a number of different data types, including alphanumeric (text), date, or controlled vocabulary.

Group of fields: A group of fields (or information units) that are related to one another; for example, a People and their Role in the production of an object. Groups of fields are also known as "Structured fields."

Identification numbers: A unique number identifying a procedure, object or specimens, including any separated parts.

Intake (Object entry): The management and documentation of the receipt of objects and associated information which are not currently part of the collections. Any object which does not currently have an object number assigned by the receiving organization must be dealt with within this procedure.

Object record: See Cataloging.

Predictive text search: An input method that returns search results based on the first few characters entered by a user. CollectionSpace uses predictive text search interfaces in fields tied to controlled vocabularies. A.k.a. "Term completion."

Primary and secondary tabs: The CollectionSpace information architecture supports easy access to records related to the record a user is working with via a primary/secondary tab structure. The primary tab is the left-most tab. When a user enters a record of any kind, s/he will see the "primary" tab. "Secondary" tabs may be added via the +Related button. All information on the screen header and in the sidebar to the right pertain to the primary record. From the primary tab, the user may choose to navigate directly to a related record via the right sidebar or its secondary tab. From the secondary tab, the user has the ability to see and edit related record information.

Procedural record: Records used to capture and manage information that revolves around a specific collections management workflow such as intake, acquisition, loans, or cataloging.

Profile: A bundle of Procedures, Authorities, and Domain Schema Extensions that are aligned with the needs of a domain or community-of-practice.  The CollectionSpace organization creates and supports Profiles in coordination with community members.

Repeatable field: A repeatable field may hold multiple instances, which can be created or deleted by the user. Repeatable fields are also known as repeating, multivalue, or multi-value fields.

Example: the Color field in Cataloging is repeatable, because an object may have one or more primary colors.

Repeatable group of fields: A repeatable group of fields may hold multiple instances, each of which may be added or deleted as a group by the user, much like a row in a spreadsheet or database. Repeatable groups of fields may also be called repeatable structured fields.

Example: an object may have one or more Other numbers, and each of these numbers may have a type.

Right Sidebar: The right sidebar, within the CollectionSpace application, contains a snapshot of contextual information for a record.  Below is an image that shows a record and a portion of the right sidebar with related records.

Service layer: The Service Layer is comprised of Services Oriented Architecture and Resource Oriented Architecture. Services are self-contained units of code that perform a specific function or represent a specific entity within the system, serving as the core of the application. All collections information that is accessed, managed, processed, or combined with outside content by the user is stored in a CollectionSpace entity or utility service. Each service is accessible individually through industry-standard programming environments via a set of RESTful APIs.

Structured date: A structured date is a series of fields that capture more information than simply a calendar date. In the default CollectionSpace implementation, structured dates includes the following fields

Structured field: See Group of fields

Term list: See Controlled list.

Taxonomy: A collection of controlled vocabulary terms organized into a hierarchical structure (i.e. it is a type of Vocabulary). Each term in a taxonomy is in one or more parent/child (broader/narrower) relationships to other terms in the taxonomy. Scientific taxonomy is the classification of organisms in an ordered system that indicates natural relationships. Wikipedia goes into greater detail and examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy.

User interface or UI layer: The screens through which a user views and interacts with CollectionSpace are called the User Interface, and comprise the UI Layer. 

Value instance: A single value, that represents a discrete piece of information, within a repeatable field.

Vocabulary: Vocabulary control is used to improve the effectiveness of information storage and retrieval systems, Web navigation systems, and other environments that seek to both identify and locate desired content via some sort of description using language. The primary purpose of vocabulary control is to achieve consistency in the description of content objects and to facilitate retrieval.

The need for vocabulary control arises from two basic features of natural language, namely:

• Two or more words or terms can be used to represent a single concept
• Two or more words that have the same spelling can represent different concepts

Vocabulary control is achieved by three principal methods:

• Defining the scope, or meaning, of terms;
• Using the equivalence relationship to link synonymous and nearly synonymous terms; and
• Distinguishing among homographs.

Types of controlled vocabularies include Authorities (see above), Controlled lists, Taxonomies, and Thesauri. An example of a Controlled list:

Above text from ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005).

Glossary definitions for acquisition, cataloging, identification numbers, and intake (object entry) are from Spectrum Version 3.2, published by Collections Trust.