Cataloguing Cultural Objects: New Descriptive Cataloguing Guidelines for the Cultural Heritage Community

Abstract

Beginnings During the course of the last ten to fifteen years, many organizations and agencies have been working toward the devel opment of data standards for the description of cultural heritage materials. As the digital age progresses, it becomes critical to have good descriptions of these materials to facilitate access. Along with good descriptive data, data standards (including controlled vocabularies and the use of thesauri) and data content rules promote good cataloging practice by enforcing consis tency in description and also allow for retrieval of information. In addition, the use of data standards promotes data sharing, management of data content, and reduces redundancy in the effort of cataloging, which, although not really ends in and of themselves, make other processes scalable. In the art and cultural heritage communities, much effort has gone into the development of data element sets such as the Dublin Core, Categories for the Description of Works of Art, and the VRA Core. These sets enumerate data elements that can be used to develop a structure for fielded information in a database.