Wikidata:Wikiproject Smithsonian Libraries and Archives/Smithsonian Organizations
The Smithsonian Institution is comprised of multiple types of organizations. This project is to ensure the Smithsonian is well reflected in Wikidata, continuing the work started in the PCC Wikidata Pilot.
Goals[edit]
This project is a continuation of a PCC Pilot project that was not complete. Goals include:
- Modeling buildings vs. organizations
- Ensuring completion of core and extended properties for Smithsonian organizations
- Investigating ways to represent agency histories and relationships between archival collections and organizations at the Smithsonian
Challenges[edit]
Buildings vs. Organizations[edit]
Conflation of Buildings and Organizations in Museum Data Modeling
Museums as a class have been modeled inconsistently in Wikidata. The discussion page for museum (Q33506) includes arguments for and against splitting organizations from buildings; however the consensus within the Wikidata:WikiProject_Museums community is that museum buildings and museum organizations should be separate. This causes complications in the data model for museums, as many museum items on Wikidata lack a P31 value for building (Q41176) or museum building (Q24699794); however the items with a P31 of museum (Q33506) tend to include properties that obviously belong to a building – such as architect (P84) – alongside properties that belong to an organization – such as director / manager (P1037) or a list of notable items in a collection (owner of (P1830)). Museum items can run into problems with inception (P571) of the organization versus the building, and may occupy a series of buildings over the history of the organization, or the institution may administer more than one building. Therefore the conflation occurs *within* the concept “museum” itself, which can conceptually mean both organization and building in the understanding of many people, as is reflected in the conflicting subclass of (P279) statements attached to museum (Q33506). Some editors have separated the organization from the building, creating records for both; but the majority appear to have not yet been separated.
See properties for Q207694 and art museum (Q3196771) for distinct data model example.
WikiProject Smithsonian Libraries and Archives Policy
Many Smithsonian organizations (museums, research centers, etc.) are located in notable buildings. This section is to explain the approach we hope to use for how to handle the distinction between museums as organizations and museums as buildings.
- Coordinate location (P625) should be used for buildings, and headquarters location (P159) for organization.
- Disambiguation technique: description for an organization's facility should begin, "Building occupied by [organization]."
- An organization should not be an instance of (subclass of) building (Q41176) or facility (Q13226383).
| Property | Organization | Facility | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Description | "Building/facility occupied by [organization]." | ||
| Instance of | organization, institution, or subclass | architectural structure (Q811979) or subclass (building, facility, etc.) | |
| Headquarters location (P159) | Value is associated headquarters facility, with P276 qualifier for specific building | Omit | |
| Occupant (P466) | Omit | Value is associated organization | |
| Location (P276) | Value is associated non-headquarters facility | Omit | Other candidate properties:
has facility. Typical values are generic places. has part(s). Uses should be same class work location. Domain limited to people/classes of people. significant place. Overly generic. owner of. Potentially too specific. uses. Typical values are items or objects. |
Defunct, predecessor, and successor organizations[edit]
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is the successor organization of the Canal Zone Biological Area. As of 11/30/22, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute represents this relationship through the official name property:
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (English) start time 1966
Canal Zone Biological Area (English) end time 1966 start time 1940
The Smithsonian Institution Archives models this relationship differently, maintaining Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Canal Zone Biological Area as separate creators, each with their own agency histories. To model this similarly on Wikidata, we could use succeeds/succeeded by.
Status[edit]
Planning and exploration stage - now
As an initial proof of concept: ingest statements from SIA's Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute agency history (plus updated data) into Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Q1673980). At minimum, include core properties above. BornOnTheCob (talk) 19:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Organization Properties[edit]
Core[edit]
Example: National Museum of Natural History (Q148554)[edit]
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| alias | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History|Natural History Museum|Smithsonian Natural History Museum | |
| instance of (P31) | natural history museum (Q1970365) | repeat instance or use subclass? Pilsks (talk) 20:08, 5 November 2020 (UTC) |
| inception (P571) | 1957 | NB: 1910 is the date for the construction of the building. NMNH as a museum (organization) had inception in 1957. BornOnTheCob (talk) 17:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC) |
| parent organization (P749) | Smithsonian Institution (Q131626) | |
| part of (P361) | Smithsonian Institution (Q131626) | Department of Entomology's part of (P361) statement would have value National Museum of Natural History (Q148554). |
| official website (P856) | https://naturalhistory.si.edu/ | |
| ISNI (P213) | 0000 0001 2364 2127 | |
| located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) | Washington, D.C. (Q61) | |
| described at URL (P973) | https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_217898 | SIA agency history link |
Items Part of / Parent Organization is Smithsonian[edit]
Graph display of Organizations part of (P361) Smithsonian, 4 levels down
Extended[edit]
Smithsonian Institution Archives collections as items[edit]
We'll need to ingest SIA collections information in order to make the agency histories optimally useful. Researchers should be able to query from creator to collection, that is, find all of the collections (and finding aids) associated with a particular agency/organization. Our local agency histories do not currently do this, due to the limitations of the SIA website. BornOnTheCob (talk) 16:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Core[edit]
| Property | Value | Notes | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | collection name ([collection number]) | creator + title + dates concatenated from finding aid, plus collection number in parentheses | Smithsonian Institution. Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation Building Files, circa 1850-2006 (Accession 06-225) |
| Description | Archival collection held by the Smithsonian Institution Archives with collection number [collection number]. | Archival collection held by the Smithsonian Institution Archives with collection number Accession 06-225. | |
| instance of (P31) | collection | ||
| title (P1476) | collection name (English) | creator + title + dates concatenated from finding aid (+ English) | Smithsonian Institution. Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation Building Files, circa 1850-2006 (English) |
| inventory number (P217) | Collection number, i.e. accession or record unit number | include qualifier: Property:P195 (collection: Smithsonian Institution Archives) | 06-225. qualifier P195: Smithsonian Institution Archives |
| level of description (P6224) | archival collection | Archival collection does not have that many uses. Perhaps reconsider | archival collection |
| collection creator (P6241) | creator | This is how the agency histories (items for organizations) and their individual collections will be linked in queries. | Smithsonian Institution. Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation |
| collection (P195) | Smithsonian Institution Archives | Smithsonian Institution Archives |
Extended[edit]
| Property | Value | Notes | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start time Property:P580 | beginning date of records | derived from finding aid dates | 1850 |
| End time Property:P582 | end date of records | derived from finding aid dates | 2006 |
| Smithsonian resource ID Property:P7851 | will link to the SI "object" link; e.g. https://www.si.edu/object/siris_arc_282638 | siris_arc_282638 | |
| described at URL Property:P973 | finding aid link | will link to finding aid on SIA website, e.g. https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_282638 | https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_282638 |
| amount cataloged Property:P7328 | quantity | will need to be truncated from finding aid data (e.g. "59 cu. ft. (59 record storage boxes) (10 oversize folders)") | 59 cu. ft. |
Reference Sources[edit]
See the Wikidata help page for sources, and when you don't need a source.
- WikiProject_Museums discussion of museum as organization vs. museum as location.
- Archived Wikidata:Project_chat discussion of conflation of organizations vs. buildings in the GLAM sector.
- WikiProject_Performing arts page on their project to disentangle building and organization items.
Related Queries[edit]
Organizations vs. buildings data modeling[edit]
- Smithsonian Institution museums with instance of building statements
- Most used properties for items with instance of/subclass of museum that are also part of Smithsonian Institution -- adapted from a WikiProject_Performing Arts query.
- Most used properties for items with instance of/subclass of museum and building and are also part of Smithsonian Institution -- adapted from a WikiProject_Performing Arts query.