The previously introduced general ontological core framework formally describes a historical reality which constitutes a pivotal point of reference for the interpretation of the inquiries and the creation of the general patterns. On this basis, ten general patterns evolved during the ontological analysis and the subsequent ontological modelling process. These general patterns are shown in Table3and will be discussed in great detail in the following section (V:2). This subsection provides some background information on the general patterns.
When this core framework is related to the archival context, two principal types of general patterns become apparent: one type describes the provenance of things while the other describes the “aboutness” of these things.
During the ontological formalization of the results of the interpretative analysis, two principal kinds of historical context emerge by means of which the general patterns are characterized and intellectually grouped:
1. The general patterns belonging to theprovenance contextfocus on thehistorical contextfrom which the requested things have resulted, which includes acts ofcreationandpossession.
2. The general patterns belonging to the aboutness contextfocus on the historical context to which the inquiry primarily refers, either directly or indirectly, via the requested documents.
In the case ofresource discoveryquestions, two general patterns, one from each context, always represent the subject matter of the primary interest of the inquiry: one general pattern from the provenance contextprovides entities to describe creation, keeping, and taking notice of things, and one general pattern from the aboutness context specifies the historical reality to which the inquiry and the requested things refer. Selected elements from both patterns are instantiated with the given entities and in few cases with additional information derived from the interpretation of the inquiry. These then form a query pattern constituting a categorical and exemplary representation of potential queries adequate to retrieve relevant information objects or facts.
Factual questions may, in principle, inquire about any aspect of the provenance or aboutness context. Furthermore, since this study assumes a fundamental need for evidential materials in
order to provide and support the factual information requested by the user (IV:2.1), information objects potentially capable of providing such evidence are implicitly considered secondary objectives of the interest of the question. Factual questions are therefore also assigned two patterns, one from each context.
The general patterns grouped in both contexts differ in their level of specificity and are partly sub-patterns of each other. The patternsProvenanceandAboutnessconstitute the uppermost layer of the AKM in terms of its semantics. Both patterns will be discussed at greater length in the next section since these two patterns also pertain to all others on account of inheritance (IV:3.1).
Provenance Context Aboutness Context
Provenance Aboutness
Documentation Events Self-Documentation Plans Correspondence Actors
Things Documents
Table 3– Provenance context and aboutness context general patterns.
The general patternsProvenance,Documentation,Self-Documentation, andCorrespondence belong to the provenance context. The general patternsAboutness,Events,Plans,Actors,Things andDocumentsbelong to the aboutness context.
The general patterns belonging to the aboutness context indicate the general “aboutness” of the questions; for example, if a question is assigned to theActorspattern it will usually be about one or more actors. In this regard, general patterns pertaining to the aboutness context indicate unspecified “aboutness”.
The general patterns belonging to the provenance context indicate the general context in which an information object has been created. TheProvenancepattern indicates an unspecific context, either of creation or of the storing of information objects or physical things.
One could say that the general patterns place the given and wanted entities within relevant and adequate historical contexts representing the historical reality to which the primary interest of the inquiry refers.
The assignment of a general pattern from the provenance context conforms to questions regarding the most likely historical context of provenance from which the documents in question resulted. For example, a question about surveillance reports would be assigned to the Document-ationpattern since such reports resulted from observing the activities of others. This sense is covered by theDocumentationpattern.
The assignment of a general pattern from the aboutness context conforms to questions about the most recognizable historical context to which the question refers. For example, a question
inquiring into the membership of a person in a political party would be assigned to theActors pattern since the question is generally about the actor. This sense is covered by theActorspattern.
The particular combination of two general patterns is deemed best suited to represent a query pattern adequate to reasonably answer the most recognizable and primary interest of the question. In both cases, the most specific general pattern possible is chosen that would not, however, exclude potential queries of a more general nature.
While the general pattern itself already characterizes the interest of an inquiry, when instan-tiated in the context of query patterns aprimary entity of interestcan be determined that further indicates which particular entity is most relevant in each general pattern used. This goes for both the case of general patterns from the provenance context in terms of who created, produced, or kept an information object, and the case of general patterns from the aboutness context in terms of the specific aboutness of said information object. For each query pattern, therefore, a primary entity of interestis further provided in square brackets. This indicates one element within the respective general pattern which represents the most recognizable and relevant ontological entity indicating the aboutness and provenance of things or facts requested in an inquiry within the context of a particular general pattern.
In the case of general patterns pertaining to the aboutness context, the primary entity of interest denotes the type of entity the question in general or the requested information objects or facts are primarily about. In most cases, the primary entity of interest conforms to the wanted entity. For example, the assignment of the general patternActorsdescribing the aboutness context with the primary entity of interest[particular group]would mean that the inquiry and request for information objects or facts are primarily about a particular group.
In the case of general patterns pertaining to the provenance context, the primary entity of interest is the given entity, which is the creator, producer or keeper of the requested information objects or physical objects. The rest of the given entities are put into selected “slots” of the general patterns, thus forming an exemplary query pattern. If an entity is unknown, then “any”
is used as the primary entity of interest. For example, the assignment of the general pattern Documentationdescribing the provenance context with the primary entity of interest[particular person]would mean that the inquiry asks for information objects as the result of a documenting activity carried out by a particular person.
Assuming a fictitious inquiry with the type of questionmaterial-findingand both previous examples of general patterns assigned toactors [particular group]anddocumentation [particular person], then this inquiry would demand any kind of information object resulting from a documentation or observational activity conducted by a particular person targeting a particular group and its activities.
Moving on to the primary entities of interest identified during the interpretative analysis, in the case of general patterns from the provenance context, the possible primary entities of interest are any kind of actor since the scope of this study includes human-made traces and traditions. Consequently, and according to the systematization employed thus far, the kinds of
primary entities of interest identified areparticular person,particular group,type of person,type of groupandactor,in which case the creator or keeper is unknown or may vary.
In the case of a general pattern from the aboutness context the identified primary entities of interest areparticular person,particular group,type of person,type of group,particular activity,type of activity,particular thingandany,which means that the general aboutness of the question or the specific aboutness of the information objects or facts is either unknown, irrelevant or variable.
Some factual and very few resource discovery inquiries have a topical relationship regarding aspects of particular information objects; for example, inquiries about the extent of a particular holding or the form or type of a document. The aboutness context is then given by the general patternDocumentsand the primary entity of interest relates to a particular aspect of one or more information objects. In these cases, one of the following primary entities of interest is indicated, each of which subsumes various particular interests related to information objects:
• content informationsuch as a summary of the contents of a file or holding, or the existence of a finding aid
• document relationsuch as whether a particular document is part of a particular file
• extentsuch as the number of documents within a file or holding
• identitysuch as the type or form of a document
• provenancesuch as the current custodian of a holding
The assignment of two general patterns, one describing the context of provenance and the other the context of aboutness, along with the specification of the respective primary entities of interest for each general pattern, allows for a categorization and approximation of the primary and most cognizable epistemic focus of an inquiry. A principal categorical query pattern can be described by instantiating elements from both general patterns with given and wanted entities from the inquiry and by denominating the primary query target.
The general patterns are not strictly delimited but overlap and constitute aggregations of entities and relationships with which to represent prototypical historical contexts related to provenance and aboutness. The general patterns and primary entities of interest can only provide an approximation of the most recognizable interest of an inquiry. The assignments do not constitute a clear-cut or exclusive categorization.