The text is a historical analysis of how data models become to be as they are in different ALM (GLAM) contexts and asks if they should be more like each other or more different then each other.
The author thinks, that he has not enough temporal distance from the things he is about to analyze. (Furner, 2016, p. 42) I find the extend to which he is stating that quite interesting, funny almost.
There are different approaches to the analysis that need to be considered, and a proper analysis will factor in several of them:
- interactionist, agent-oriented focusing on human actors
- functionalist, artifact-oriented
- structuralist, domain-oriented focusing on disciplinary traditions and customs
What are data models
- 1960s data structure class to be used in descriptions
- or 1980s as a schema
- as conceptual schema, simplifying real things
- or as schema of other kinds, meaning data of those things that may be collected
Usually, library management systems start with a resource/authority distinction.
Some history
A shared unified data model came about only after mid 1980. After that ALM started to bring into being their own data models.
In the development of these different models and subsequently standards, the different needs of the different domains became apparent. Archival descriptions are about access to collections, rather than item-level objects. Especially Weber wrote about this in her 1993 paper.
In the end it should come down to users needs.
“Whoever the users are for whom the standards were designed, we must study their use of the descriptions and the implementations we offer, and be ready to evolve these standards and implementations in response to needs. … No standards deserve to be implemented as a strategy to improve access unless they can be shown to work. … Only empirical evidence should be accepted as an argument for standards if the standards are intended to promote access through automated systems. In all aspects of the standardization process, we must stoutly resist introducing requirements that have no warrant in archival practices and that will return few, if any, benefits.” (Furner, 2016, p. 58)