creating classes, or supercategories, for testimonia

[josephrife]

OK guys, after much thought I have decided we need supercategories for testimonia, which I would call "Class" (es). I hope you agree. This is because users (I think?) will be interested in browsing/searching broad classes of testimonia that are in terms of material, composition, content, and even thought-worlds and traditions and modes of consumption/reading, significantly different--and these classes align with traditions and skill-sets of scholarship. They would be the following:
Class: Literature [by far most testimonia]
Class: Document>Inscription
Class: Document>Graffiti, dipinti, instrumenta domestica
Class: Document>Papyrus
Class: Document>Law
Class: Document>Map
Now "Class" is a separate ontology (right word?) than what I would call "Type" (or we can switch "Class" and "Type" here?)--I think of "Type" as what might traditionally (e.g. TLG) be called "Genre", but it might I submit be wise to steer sway from "Genre" because it would seem to carry the baggage of longstanding traditional classifications of literary sources, with their own embedded purposes, and to carry the flavor of literary-cultural criticism. "Type" could be things like (we talked about this before) "Hagiography," "Epic Poetry," "Itinerary" (or Pilgrims' Account) etc. Those "Type" s could of course crosscut the ontologies "Class" and "Type", because one can imagine perhaps quotations from or fragments from a "Hagiography" showing up on a papyrus found in Lower Egypt. I can also imagine certain "Types" that we create in the future pertaining chiefly to Class: Document>Inscription such as "Epitaph" showing up in written sources, if they are quoted e.g. in historical narratives. But those cases would be rareties. The point is that "Class" and "Type" are separate ontologies.
I am not sure whether all these musings make sense or are not appropriate to this GitHub dialog medium??
thx Joe

[wlpotter]

@josephrife I think posting this to GitHub is perfectly fine as a dialog medium. I will have to take a closer look at your comments on Friday when I get a chance. But I think it's worth discussing (most likely more efficient to discuss at a meeting and log our decisions in the GitHub issue), and it is great to have your initial thoughts.

Note to self: related to #156 and the Google sheet linked in #181 ; the literature, document, etc. is related to #155

[davidamichelson]

@josephrife We like this but there are some conceptual issues that Library Science has a different take on from Classicists and so we will need to sort of reconcile the two approaches (for what the librarians do see https://www.oclc.org/research/activities/frbr.html). So to take the easiest approach before the roll out, could we just use the macro classes: Literary Testimonia and Documentary Testimonia for now and then wrestle with the rest later?

[josephrife]

OK sounds good JOe

…

----------------------------------------------------------------- Joseph L. Rife Associate Professor Department of Classical and Mediterranean Studies Affiliated Faculty in Anthropology and Religion Director, The American Excavations at Kenchreai (Greece) Co-Director, The Caesarea City and Port Exploration Project (Israel) Check out my research websites: https://caesarea-maritima.org/ http://www.kenchreai.org/ Check out my books: [cid:715c122d-f4ef-42ea-9bc7-944bcd412579] [cid:49050a35-befe-45f8-b7f3-b824136f93dc] <https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/publications/book/?i=9780876615546>

________________________________ From: David Michelson ***@***.***> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2023 10:30 AM To: srophe/caesarea-data ***@***.***> Cc: Rife, Joseph Lee ***@***.***>; Mention ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [srophe/caesarea-data] creating classes, or supercategories, for testimonia (Issue #186) @josephrife<https://github.com/josephrife> We like this but there are some conceptual issues that Library Science has a different take on from Classicists and so we will need to sort of reconcile the two approaches (for what the librarians do see https://www.oclc.org/research/activities/frbr.html). So to take the easiest approach before the roll out, could we just use the macro classes: Literary Testimonia and Documentary Testimonia for now and then wrestle with the rest later? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#186 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASMZS2BBSHPHGBMSA2U3MDDXA3C75ANCNFSM6AAAAAAV5V2OXQ>. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>