Feature Request - Two new part attribute encumbrance actions

[krgomez]

Describe what you're trying to accomplish An clear and concise overview of the goals; why are you asking for this? We need to encumber preservation need and condition report part attributes for the UAM:Art collection. As we see it, the primary reason for needing to encumber these part attributes is that without the aid of interpretation by a museum professional there is concern for misinterpretation of this data. We can find no other examples where this level of information about artworks is shared publicly online by other museums. For more context, see #1908.

Describe the solution you'd like How might we accomplish your goals? Create two new encumbrance actions: mask part attribute condition report mask part attribute preservation need

Describe alternatives you've considered A clear and concise description of any alternative solutions or features you've considered. I don't think there's any other way...

Priority Please assign a priority-label. Unprioritized issues gets sent into a black hole of despair. High

[dustymc]

can find no other examples where this level of information

That's why we built Arctos!

concern for misinterpretation

Everything (ish, probably) that's subject to interpretation is presented as a determination rather than a fact. (And you can always blame "unknown.")

I don't think there's anything technical or wrong here so I'm not exactly objecting, but this sounds like the opposite of "research grade." If those data were out there, maybe someone would do something awesome with them. If they're not, you'll never know. Arctos has been a driver of innovation, feedback from users has been used to make Arctos better, and none of that can work if we're arbitrarily withholding data.

[AJLinn]

I've always been in favor of transparency in this and all data that does not infringe upon privacy concerns. I will always make my condition reports visible to the public as a way of providing full disclosure on how stable they are, especially if individuals are hoping to examine for research or request for a loan. My 2-cents.

[marecaguthrie]

Sorry for my slow response. I'd like to request that we move forward on encumbering the condition for now. I'm very open to moving towards making that information public in the future, but I want to do a little more research first to be sure we aren't breaking best practices for art collections. I know that some art museums have deliberately withheld specific information about materials and techniques to reduce risk of forgery but I don't know if that applies in this instance. I plan to have a conversation with the folks and Linked Art, the Getty, and the museum listservs on this topic, but can't take that on at the moment. Karinna and I both will be out of the office or working on other projects for the summer and I'd like to get this encumbered before then if possible. Thanks!

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 5:00 PM Angela Linn @.***> wrote:

I've always been in favor of transparency in this and all data that does not infringe upon privacy concerns. I will always make my condition reports visible to the public as a way of providing full disclosure on how stable they are, especially if individuals are hoping to examine for research or request for a loan. My 2-cents.

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-- Mareca Guthrie (she/her/hers) Curator of Fine Arts & Associate Professor of Art University of Alaska Museum of the North 1962 Yukon Drive P.O. Box 756960 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 @.***

University of Alaska Museum of the North: www.uaf.edu/museum UAF Art Department: https://www.uaf.edu/art/ https://www.uaf.edu/art/

At UAF, we acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral and unceded lands our six campuses reside. Here in Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the lands of the Dené people of the Tanana River.

[marecaguthrie]

I'm just checking in on this. Would it be possible to move forward on this request?

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 9:07 AM Mareca Guthrie @.***> wrote:

Sorry for my slow response. I'd like to request that we move forward on encumbering the condition for now. I'm very open to moving towards making that information public in the future, but I want to do a little more research first to be sure we aren't breaking best practices for art collections. I know that some art museums have deliberately withheld specific information about materials and techniques to reduce risk of forgery but I don't know if that applies in this instance. I plan to have a conversation with the folks and Linked Art, the Getty, and the museum listservs on this topic, but can't take that on at the moment. Karinna and I both will be out of the office or working on other projects for the summer and I'd like to get this encumbered before then if possible. Thanks!

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 5:00 PM Angela Linn @.***> wrote:

I've always been in favor of transparency in this and all data that does not infringe upon privacy concerns. I will always make my condition reports visible to the public as a way of providing full disclosure on how stable they are, especially if individuals are hoping to examine for research or request for a loan. My 2-cents.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/3536#issuecomment-805391825, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJKSRR7X7PLHOHNKMHUPE2LTFE2URANCNFSM4ZVYFPZA .

-- Mareca Guthrie (she/her/hers) Curator of Fine Arts & Associate Professor of Art University of Alaska Museum of the North 1962 Yukon Drive P.O. Box 756960 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 @.***

University of Alaska Museum of the North: www.uaf.edu/museum UAF Art Department: https://www.uaf.edu/art/ https://www.uaf.edu/art/

At UAF, we acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral and unceded lands our six campuses reside. Here in Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the lands of the Dené people of the Tanana River.

-- Mareca Guthrie (she/her/hers) Curator of Fine Arts & Associate Professor of Art University of Alaska Museum of the North 1962 Yukon Drive P.O. Box 756960 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 @.***

University of Alaska Museum of the North: www.uaf.edu/museum UAF Art Department: https://www.uaf.edu/art/ https://www.uaf.edu/art/

At UAF, we acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral and unceded lands our six campuses reside. Here in Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the lands of the Dené people of the Tanana River.

[Jegelewicz]

@dustymc any objections?

[marecaguthrie]

Just checking in on this Fine Arts request. Thanks!

On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 10:43 AM Teresa Mayfield-Meyer < @.***> wrote:

@dustymc https://github.com/dustymc any objections?

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/3536#issuecomment-830289205, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJKSRRZ662UXNN6VC2LLAATTLL253ANCNFSM4ZVYFPZA .

-- Mareca Guthrie (she/her/hers) Curator of Fine Arts & Associate Professor of Art University of Alaska Museum of the North 1962 Yukon Drive P.O. Box 756960 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 @.***

University of Alaska Museum of the North: www.uaf.edu/museum UAF Art Department: https://www.uaf.edu/art/ https://www.uaf.edu/art/

At UAF, we acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral and unceded lands our six campuses reside. Here in Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the lands of the Dené people of the Tanana River.

[Jegelewicz]

@dustymc I don't know how much work this entails, but this is important to the art collections. I think everyone who is using these part attributes has commented here.

[dustymc]

how much work

A fair bit IIRC, plus some long-term costs (payable in CPU cycles). I'm wondering if we could just not display some list/category/something of part (and maybe other??) attributes? That's probably more work in some way, but the next similar request (which seems likely) should more than make up for that if the idea's not too out there. I don't have anything specific in mind, but it seems worth exploring.

And I'd still like some full-AWG feedback on https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/3536#issuecomment-805353562; those may not be unrelated ideas (eg, maybe we need "research" and "curatorial" attributes or something, IDK).

[Jegelewicz]

I'm wondering if we could just not display some list/category/something of part (and maybe other??) attributes?

That was going to be my suggestion, but @AJLinn said:

I've always been in favor of transparency in this and all data that does not infringe upon privacy concerns. I will always make my condition reports visible to the public as a way of providing full disclosure on how stable they are, especially if individuals are hoping to examine for research or request for a loan. My 2-cents.

Which says to me she would prefer these part attributes be displayed.

I don't think any of the biological collections care about this (although they should and they should make better use of it), but I am going to take the side of transparency here. We are public institutions holding objects in the public trust. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to hide condition or preservation need from the very people who are paying/might pay for it and we should always be prepared for misinterpretation - that is half of what museums do - interpret.

I will place this on the next AWG Issues Agenda, unfortunately, we aren't getting through much each meeting. @marecaguthrie if this is really important to you, maybe you can come to the meeting to offer me an excuse to bring it up? Meeting is 2021-09-02 at 10:30 am PST.

[ewommack]

I second that @marecaguthrie! If you can come to the meeting, that would help a ton with the discussion, and you could also pull the item up to the top of the agenda for consideration. It's always really helpful to have a range of thoughts and experiences in the discussions.

[krgomez]

I am not sure when the next AWG meeting is, but I think Mareca can look into attending to discuss this issue. She did contact the collections stewardship listserv to gather thoughts from the museum community on this, with some helpful perspectives gleaned. I know this needs more discussion, but in the meantime I have a practical question.

We created the part attribute condition report because it is valuable to record the agent and date along with the text, and to be able to distinguish one report from another instead of having one long stream of everything in the part condition field. Another reason was to be able to encumber the information. Once this part attribute was created, I went ahead and copied over the condition data in the part condition field into this new part attribute, and so currently this data is duplicated in two places. What I want to do is replace all text in every object part condition field for the UAM:Art collection with "see condition report(s)". I don't see a way to do this other than going through records one-by-one. Is there a simple way to do this?

[Jegelewicz]

What I want to do is replace all text in every object part condition field for the UAM:Art collection with "see condition report(s)". I don't see a way to do this other than going through records one-by-one. Is there a simple way to do this?

@dustymc can probably magic this for you.

[ewommack]

@krgomez and @marecaguthrie the AWG meetings are on the 4th Thursday of every month at 12pm MT for 2022, and the AWG Issues meetings are on the 1st Thursday of every month at 12pm MT for 2022. So the next AWG meeting will be on the 24th of March. You can find the info in the Arctos google calendar. Let us know if you need help finding it.

[Jegelewicz]

Bring this to the AWG - how many encumbrances do we need? What is the policy for hiding Arctos data.

[Jegelewicz]

Removing from the Code Table Project - this is a broader community issue and I am not certain it has been resolved.

[marecaguthrie]

Happy to attend the next meeting if that is helpful, it looks like I dropped the ball on that :) Can you let me know when the next meeting is?

On Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 8:43 AM Teresa Mayfield-Meyer < @.***> wrote:

Removing from the Code Table Project - this is a broader community issue and I am not certain it has been resolved.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/3536#issuecomment-1314139805, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJKSRR5DYHTP2W6FYD374PTWIJ22XANCNFSM4ZVYFPZA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

-- Mareca Guthrie (she/her/hers) Curator of Fine Arts & Associate Professor of Art University of Alaska Museum of the North 1962 Yukon Drive P.O. Box 756960 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 @.***

University of Alaska Museum of the North: www.uaf.edu/museum UAF Art Department: https://www.uaf.edu/art/ https://www.uaf.edu/art/

At UAF, we acknowledge the Alaska Native nations upon whose ancestral and unceded lands our six campuses reside. Here in Fairbanks, our Troth Yeddha' Campus is located on the lands of the Dené people of the Tanana River.

[Jegelewicz]

@marecaguthrie we had a long discussion about encumbrances at the October AWG meeting - see the notes here. This topic was then placed on the Officer's Meeting Agenda (October 28) and there it was suggested it be added to the next Board Meeting, which will be in January.

[Jegelewicz]

UGH - this was never added to the Advisory Committee Agenda.

[mkoo]

We can discuss today at the AWG meeting but reading this thread, my main question to be discussed is whether this information needs to be simply "private" for curatorial eyes only or truly "encumbered" which has implication beyond the collection and Arctos wide. Is there a middle ground we need? Let's discuss

[dustymc]

simply "private"

Yes, that is worth discussing. I don't have anything specific in mind, but encumbrances are expensive (in code, maintenance, and CPU - and 'financially' should be added to the list) and just making some things internal by decree might be a simplification for all (or a horrible complicating mistake, IDK, needs discussed).

today

I'm not sure this is priority??

[campmlc]

I support having the option of "private" for curatorial eyes only, because there are certain data in our collections that are exactly that, and we don't want to have them suddenly unencumbered in 5 years because someone didn't read a notification.

[mkoo]

AWG discussion: new issue needed to proposed which components of a record that could be public or private under curatorial management.

[Jegelewicz]

I'm wondering if we could just not display some list/category/something of part (and maybe other??) attributes?

Could we have curatorial attributes? A list of attributes that are always private? Some of these may be the same information as existing attributes, but selecting the curatorial version means keeping the information out of the public interface.

[dustymc]

curatorial attributes

As an addition: I don't think that's at all sustainable, I already struggle with the resources to deal with attributes, adding a multiplier does not sound like fun for anyone.

As a replacement: Worth a hard look.

• should be a LOT cheaper to process
• should be harder to muck up/be more secure
• should be easier to use/understand
• https://arctos.database.museum/info/ctDocumentation.cfm?table=ctattribute_type is already crazy, what's a little crazier? (Similar CTs could follow suit.)