[crm-sig] 4 new issues, Collection class

[martin]

Tony Gill wrote:
> 
> OK, here are a few discussion issues I would like to propose:
 
> 2. Collection class
> I've always been unhappy about the absence of a Collection class in the
> CRM, but couldn't think of a good response to Martin's question about what
> it's unique properties should be. Well, Martin himself came up with a
> candidate property for the Collection class, "Curated by", so I'm very
> happy to propose that we now add this class. My initial inclination would
> be to make it a subclass of E24 Physical Man Made Stuff, since I think we
> should limit it's scope to the kinds of physical collections that museums,
> libraries and archives deal with (i.e. explicitly and deliberately exclude
> collections of conceptual objects such as ideas, dreams etc.), but it
> should probably include electronic objects.

Actually this issue exists, and has been proposed already. 
I prefer "curated by (curates)" over my proposal : "maintained by (maintains)".

Alternatively, one could use  "has current keeper" as the curator?
Do we regard "has current keeper" as implied by "curates" ?
Is the curation different in practice from ownership and physical
custody?

This poses two questions:

1) which is the related activity:
 Curation , 
    subclass of: Activity
       curated : Collection

 Then "curated by" is a shot cut of Curation, following standard patterns.

Another possible generalization is to introduce a concept of
"Caring For" - cared for: Physical Stuff

which would imply custody, guarding, curating, maintaining, feeding etc. ?

2) How do things come in and out of the
   Collection?

I propose:

Part Addition
    subclass of: Activity
      added: Physical Object
      to: Physical Object

Part Removal
    subclass of: Activity
      removed: Physical Object
      from: Physical Object

This generalizes part movement, probably useful for archtecture and
archeology.

Tony, (or anyone else) could you give data structure examples of how collections are
dealt with?

Electronic objects:

I need better understanding of what the physicality of having an electronic object
in a collection is.

I can see the following: One or multiple copies of an electronic (immaterial as such)
object are physically present in a database. The latter is a physical object, which,
if it is destroyed, implies destruction of its parts. So those are lost, and if they
were the last copy world-wide, the immaterial object is FORGOTTEN. 
In this interpretation, the Electronic Object Copy fulfills the necessary properties to take
part in a physical collection. I would introduce a new class:

Electronic Object Copy 
   subclass of: Physical Feature
      is copy of: Electronic Information Object

Any comments?

Martin




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