7.0              RELATED EXTERNAL DOCUMENTATION AREA

 

 

DEFINITION:           

This category contains information about biographies, biographical essays, obituaries, curricula vitae, and other documentation that has been created independently of this bio­graphical description and which are sources for additional factual and interpretive in­formation about the described person. [other types of documentation to include?]

 

DISCUSSION:         

Independent works that describe the person and his or her life and activities are impor­tant sources for more detailed information or for additional perspectives beyond those represented in the biographical description.

 

            >>Purpose:               

The information provided in the biographical description represents the repository's se­lection of available information and perspec­tive that it feels describes the person ade­quately for its purposes.  Depending on those purposes, however, there will be some quanti­ty of additional documentation, created by others for other purposes, that the reposito­ry has not selected for inclusion.  This category provides a means of alerting the researcher to the existence of those addi­tional sources of information.

 

            >>Nature:                  

The minimum information recorded in this category is citation information sufficient to lead the reader to identify and retrieve the related docu­mentation from another source.  Additional infor­mation might include an evaluation of the related documentation, with attribution; excerpts from the documen­tation; and explicit links to bibliographic descriptions or full content representations of the cited materials.

 

SOURCES:              

Identification of related documentation may come from existing bibliographies, citations in other works, leads from researchers work­ing on related topics, or background research undertaken in con­junction with archival pro­gram activities.

 

USES:                       

Archivists may use the information in this category to identify works that they should consult as part of their appraisal, process­ing, or reference activities related to the described person.  Researchers may use the information to help define the scope of their own research topics by evaluating work al­ready completed as well as to identify addi­tional sources for information on their top­ic.

 

ACCESS:                 

For maximum utility and retrievability, the information in this category should be repre­sented as standard bibliographic data ele­ments to allow effective linking to other systems where the cited works may be repre­sented, as well as to permit use of the in­formation in standard bibliographies.

 

TERMINOLOGY:

 

EXAMPLES:

 

INTERCHANGE:    

Interchange of this information must provide for maintaining the rela­tionship among the various sub-categories, if used.

 

RELATIONSHIPS:  

Attribution of information recorded in other categories will often cite sources documented more fully in this category.

 

PRACTICE:

 

ISSUES:       

How much information should be recorded on where to find the cited documentation, espe­cially if the repository has copies readily available.  Ideally, images of the documenta­tion would be available directly from the system by a hypertext-type link.  Short of that, however, location information would be very useful for many users, especially for hard-to-find materials.