Cataloging cultural objects

Cataloging cultural objects within a digital repository is complex for a number of reasons:

• Cultural objects are inevitably compound objects
  • for example a painting may contain
    • image(s) at multiple resolutiopns
    • exhibition catalogue entries
    • associated collateral such as sound or video recordings of the artist discussing his work
• Cultural objects are intrinsically mixed media (see above)
• In the case of object of significance to indigenous cultures there may be requirements for complex access requirements

Very few humanities researchers structure their collections well. Initiatives such as Occams have the potential to allow the rapid development of collections but do not necessarily handle the relationships between objects or the compound nature of cultural objects well. There are also implications for how collections are best described and the collections metadata exported.

Useful links

• Pete Sefton on handling cultural objects
• General guidelines on cataloging cultural objects
• Kultur - creating a repository solution for Humanities and the Creative Arts (HCA)