Provenance

All things stored in an archive have been created and kept by one or more persons or groups in the past. Statements about the creation and production as well as the possession of things are the most fundamental statements to be made about archival material.

The patternProvenanceforms, together with the patternAboutness(V:2.2.1), the uppermost layer of the AKM in terms of its semantics. All other patterns are specializations of these two general patterns.

General Pattern The patternProvenancecovers the genericcontext of creationandpossession of things or, in other words, the thingsbyandof an actor. Three principal and generic cases of creation and possession of things can be distinguished:

1. Identifiable butimmaterialthings(E73 Information Object)which have beenintellectually createdby an actor. Examples are the conceptualcontentsof any kind oftextualitem such as a letter, poem, newspaper article, minutes, or of any kind ofvisualitem such as a painting, drawing or photograph.

2. Persistentandtangiblethings(E24 Physical Man-Made Thing)which have beenphysically producedby an actor. Examples are letters, poems, newspaper articles or minutes in the sense of a physical carrier, such as, most commonly, paper on which textual or visual contents are written or printed. Accordingly, this means a painting, drawing or photograph in the sense of visual contents cast on a physical carrier such as a canvas, piece of paper, or photographical paper. Other examples of physically produced things by an actor which do not necessarily carry textual or visual contents include objects such as a carved wooden figure, drinking cup, or knife.

3. Persistentandtangiblethings(E24 Physical Man-Made Thing)which have beenkeptby an actor at some point during the actor’s lifetime. Examples include all things physically produced by the actor as mentioned above but also other items such as letters received, party membership cards, birth certificates, collections of newspaper articles, or personal estates in the archive.

Figure24shows the general Provenance pattern. The pattern fundamentally distinguishes betweenintellectual contentand itsphysical carrier. The following discussion will focus first on theimmaterialthings – the intellectual content – as instances of the classE73 Information Object.

Figure 24– GeneralProvenancepattern.

Instances of the classE73 Information Objectare identifiable but immaterial things in the sense of any kind of textual or visual contents. In other words, the classE73 Information Object comprises propositions in any symbolic form, such as words of a particular language, letters from an alphabet, or text characters.

These textual or visual contents can be further distinguished into instances of the classesE31 Document,C3_akmExpression of Will, andC4_akmPlanand its sub-classC5_akmMandate. As shown in Figure25, these classes are sub-classes ofE73 Information Object.

Figure 25–Provenancepattern: Types of information objects created.

Each conveys specific notions of the nature of the immaterial contents they represent:

• Instances ofE31 Documentmake propositions about reality which have a documentary character. These documents may be expressed in different forms, such as in a text, pho-tograph, audio recording, diagram, etc. For example, theminutesof the parliamentary meetings of the Reichstag (1919-1930), thesurveillance reportson revolutionary movements during the Weimar Republic, or thephotographof the handshake between Adolf Hitler und Paul von Hindenburg at the “Day of Potsdam” on March 21st, 1933.

• Instances ofC3_akmExpression of Willrepresent the identifiable but immaterialwillof an actor to do something. For example, the vote (C3akm) of a parliamentary body to enact a law is the will to execute this plan. The classC3_akmExpression of Willis a new sub-class of E73 Information Objectand will be discussed in detail in the context of thePlanspattern (V:2.2.3).

• Instances ofC4_akmPlanare plans in the sense of schemas or descriptions for deliberate human activities or a product. Examples include manuals for operating devices, battle plans, city maps, social policies, architectural drawings, or laws. The classC4_akmPlanhas the sub-classC5_akmMandate, both of which are new classes as extensions of the CRM. Plans and mandates are discussed in greater detail in the context of the general patternsPlans (V:2.2.3) andDocumentation(V:2.1.2).

The kinds of questions analyzed in this study do not inquire about specific textual or visual qualities of information objects. For example, no question asked for the language of a particular text or whether a photograph was in black and white or in colour, nor did any question require this kind of knowledge in order to satisfy a wider information need. In other words, the textual or visual nature of the contents of information objects did not entail specific relationships necessary to respond to particular queries.⁷⁰

70Note again that classes are introduced only if they motivated specific relationships.

The classesE33 Linguistic ObjectandE36 Visual Itemhave therefore not been included. The former class comprises identifiable linguistic expressions which may be expressed in different natural languages such as texts in different languages, or the written or oral version of a text.

The latter class encompasses visual items which convey information in the form of prototypical visual features in images, marks, or symbols such as a metro map as a diagram of lines and nodes, or particular derivative paintings of the original Mona Lisa painting.

Rather, this study concentrates on questions inquiring into relationships deriving from the fact that the contents are of a documentary nature, express wills, or have plan-related characteristics. The documentary nature or aboutness of contents does not depend on its textual or visual qualities and therefore does not need to be instantiated as anE33 Linguistic Objector E36 Visual Itembut only as anE31 Document. The media type of an information object would be given by an instance of the classE55 Type. For example, a depiction of an inaugural ceremony would be an instance of the classE31 Documentsince it documents an activity, and the depiction could have the type “photograph” (E55) if indeed it were an example of photography.

None of the above information objects are to be mistaken for single items or the contents of a single page. Rather, they represent intellectual content which may stretch over several units of a physical carrier such as several pages. For example, an instance of the classE31 Documentmay represent any logical unit of an archival aggregation such as a file, series or record.

Instances ofE73 Information Objectmay contain any other instance ofE73 Information Object.

This relationship is expressed by the propertyP148 has component (is component of). For example, minutes (E31) may contain a plan (C4_akm) decided upon during a meeting, or the resolution (C3_akm) passed by vote by a parliamentary body to build new housing is documented in the official minutes (E31) of the parliamentary meeting during which the law was passed.

Since instances of the classE73 Information Objectare immaterial they are always carried by an instance of the classE24 Physical Man-Made Thing.⁷¹This relationship is expressed by the propertyP128 carries (is carried by).Instances ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thingare persistent and physical things which have been purposefully produced by the activity of an actor. For example, the minutes of a parliamentary meeting are a physical document (E24) which carries (P128) the summary (E31) of that meeting. The photograph (E24) of the same parliamentary meeting carries (P128) a visual documentation (E31) of that meeting.

The instance of E24 Physical Man-Made Thingmay carry more than one instance ofE73 Information Object. For example, a newspaper (E24) typically carries many different single articles (E31). Accordingly, one instance ofE73 Information Objectmay be carried by many different instances ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thing; for example, the visual documentation (E31) of the parliamentary meeting is carried by the newspaper (E24) and the photograph (E24) taken during the meeting.

71Strictly speaking, instances of the classE73 Information Objectmay also exist independently from a physical carrier, for example as an oral tradition in the human memory. However, the study at hand focuses on tangible traces such as predominantly written records and to a lesser extent audiovisual or visual representations.

When, therefore, we speak of “the” minutes, “the” report, “the” photograph, or “the” letter, these things must be conceptualized in terms of the nature of their immaterial content (E73) and the nature of the physical carrier (E24) of this content. Users usually seem not to differentiate between these two qualities: when inquiring about a written document or a visual item, users typically tend tothinkof an instance ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thing, the physical item, although their questionsreferto an instance ofE73 Information Object, the contents.

Indeed, the content (E73) is most relevant: Users tend first and foremost to be in search of information objects or, more specifically, documents, plans, expressions of will, or visual items, or any combination thereof, rather than specific physical carriers (E24) such as a photocopy or microfiche.

However, the differentiation between immaterial contents and physical carriers becomes relevant as soon as attributes of either are under scrutiny. For example, it makes a difference whether the historian obtains the original or a copy of a text which may have been transcribed by hand. The historian will always have to establish the intellectual and physical authenticity of the historical sources, which demands critique not only of a document’s contents but also of its form; that is, of the physical carrier. Authenticity will be discussed in the context of the Documentspattern (V:2.2.6).

In theProvenancepattern, persons and groups appear as actors creating or producing im-material and physical things. The classesE21 PersonandE74 Groupare subclasses of the class E39 Actor. These concepts have already been introduced in the previous chapter (IV:3.2): The concept of actor (E39) comprises people, either as individuals or as groups, who “have the potential to perform intentional actions for which they can be held responsible” (Crofts et al., 2006, 19). Persons (E21) are individual people who have lived or are assumed to have lived, such as Karl Marx or St. Paul. Groups (E74) are any gatherings or organizations of two or more people, such as the German Communist Party(Kommunistische Partei Deutschland,KPD), or the Greens fraction in the Reichstag. Political offices such as the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or the party leader of the Greens, as well as the concept of family are also considered a group.

Instances of the classE73 Information Objectare created through instances of the classE65 Creation. This relationship is expressed by the propertyP94 has created (was created by). Creation activities are always carried out by instances of the classE39 Actor. This relationship is expressed by the propertyP14 carried out by (performed). For example, within the scope of this study, a common and generic case is the conception (E65) of the intellectual content (E73) of a text, such as the contents of a personal letter, by the author (E21) of that letter. In a more abstract sense, the contents (E73) of minutes are created (P94) by a group (E74) by talking (E65) with each other during a meeting.

Instances of the classE24 Physical Man-Made Thingare produced through instances of the classE12 Production. This relationship is expressed by the propertyP108 has produced (was produced by). Production activities are always carried out by instances of the classE39 Actor.

This relationship is expressed by the propertyP14 carried out by (performed). For example, the contents of a letter (E33) are written down (E12) on a piece of paper and thus the physical letter (E24) is produced. Similarly, a group, or a member of this group, writes down (E12) the summary (E31) of a meeting with a typewriter and thus produces the physical minutes (E24).

The relationship between the two activitiesE65 CreationandE12 Production, therefore, is that the first conceives intellectual content (E73) which is put on a physical carrier (E24) by the second. However, in most cases, the instances ofE65 CreationandE12 Productionare identical.

For example, the activity where a person writes a letter is an instance ofE65 Creationand of E12 Productionsince the person conceives of the content and writes the actual letter at the same time, thus simultaneously creating and producing instances ofE73 Information ObjectandE24 Physical Man-Made Thing.

Similarly, the participants of a meeting can be seen as collectively creating and producing the minutes of that meeting by talking (E65) with each other and then by writing (E12) the minutes down. This process, which is discussed in more detail in theSelf-Documentationpattern (V:2.1.3), can be seen as a coherent activity, even if the minutes are actually written down later after the meeting has finished, and by only one member of the group. The person taking the minutes, of course, may be regarded as performing a distinctE65 Creationactivity since this person writes down his or her own interpretative summary of what has been said during the meeting. Instances of one person dictating a text to another are also conceivable. However, although both cases can be represented, this level of complexity yields no added value since users are not explicitly interested in finding documents based on who conceived the intellectual content and who produced the physical carrier of this content.

As a side note, in FRBRoo, “a formal ontology intended to capture and represent the un-derlying semantics of bibliographic information and to facilitate the integration, mediation, and interchange of bibliographic and museum information” (Bekiari et al.,2010, 10), the class F28 Expression Creationis a sub-class of bothE12 ProductionandE65 Creationand thus unifies the processes of the physical and intellectual creation of things. This confirms the point made previously that it is generally not essential to distinguish between E12 and E65.

However, on the generic level of theProvenancepattern, the distinction betweenE65 Creation andE12 Productionis useful and necessary for two reasons:

1. As already mentioned, not all instances ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thingnecessarily carry an identifiable instance ofE73 Information Object; for example, objects such as a wooden walking stick or a tea cup may not carry an instance ofE73 Information Objectand result only from an instance ofE12 Production. Even if it is rare that an inquiry specifically asks for physically made things, if all thingsbyan actor should be described by the AKM and thus records that are theoretically retrievable, such objects need to be included.

2. More importantly, the act ofreproductionis a special case ofE12 Production. For example, a surveillance agency has collected copies of letters, or a law enforcement agency has collected evidence during an investigation which may include copies of archival materials.

Again, although no evidence was found during the analysis of the inquiries that users seek specific reproductions, i.e. physical carriers, of an information object, it is pivotal for historical and archival research to establish the physical and intellectual authenticity of the items requested, as has been discussed in the previous chapter (IV:2.1). For this purpose, documentation of reproduction activities and additional context information about the who, when and where of the reproduction are important. Since intellectual and physical authenticity pertain to the intellectual and physical features of a document, the patternDocuments(V:2.2.6) covers reproduction activities in more detail.

As shown in Figure26, instances of the classesE12 ProductionandE65 Creationmay take place at(P7 took place at (witnessed)) a geographical place(E53 Place) and happen(P4 has time-span (is time-span of))during a specific time-span(E52 Time-Span). Furthermore, they may fall within a particular period(E4 Period). Time and place are fundamental historical categories and therefore must be represented in the model. While users in this study do not inquire about the time or place of creation or production activities aswantedinformation, they often provided these aspects asgiveninformation.

Figure 26–Provenancepattern: Time and place for creation and production activities.

The patternProvenancenot only covers acts of creation and production but also the physical possessionof things. The propertyP49 has former or current keeper (is former or current keeper of) covers cases where an instance ofE39 Actorphysically kept an instance ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thing. For example, these could be things designated for the actor and received and then kept by him or her, such as a party membership card, a passport, or letters received from another actor.⁷² One of the main reasons for including E24, therefore, was that questions about the possession of things require a query into instances ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thingsince only physical things can be physically kept or stored by an actor.

Instances of the classE78 Collectionare curated and preserved aggregations of one or more instances of the class E24 Physical Man-Made Thing. This relationship is expressed by the propertyP46 is composed of (forms part of). Similar toE24 Physical Man-Made Thing, an instance ofE78 Collectionis initially produced (P108) by an instance ofE12 Productionor may be kept

72The specific case ofdesignationis covered in the patternCorrespondence(2.1.4) which is a specialization of the Provenancepattern.

(P49) by an actor. Note thatE78 Collectionis a sub-class ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thingand therefore represents a material, and not a conceptual or logical, structure. For example, an administrative department (E74) created (P108) a collection (E78) of newspaper articles (E24) for the daily early-morning departmental briefing. In such cases it is reasonable to say that the administrative department was both producer and keeper of the collection, and the newspaper articles the collection contained. The department was not, however, the intellectual creator or physical producer of the newspaper articles. No assumptions are made about how anE39 Actormight have come into physical possession of an instance ofE24 Physical Man-Made Thing.

Furthermore, physical possession does not entail legal ownership of the things kept. The interest is not whether an actor legally owned an item or how he or she might have obtained custody of it, but only whether or not the actor physically kept the object at some point or other.

Theinitialcreation of a collection is represented by an instance ofE12 Production. In the context of theProvenancepattern the initial creation of a collection is not relevant. However, in the context of theDocumentspattern (V:2.2.6), the initial creation of a collection is implicitly represented when the things of a person are transferred into the custody of the archive and aggregated into apersonal estate,which is a special kind of collection. In the CRM, collections are curated by instances ofE87 Curation Activitywhich may involve the addition(E79 Part Addition) and removal(E80 Part Removal)of things. Instances ofE6 Destructiondescribe the destruction of a collection. The analysis of the questions showed that these aspects of curation introduce a level of complexity irrelevant to users’ questions and therefore not represented in the model.

As the first example will show, questions about thingsof orbya person, specificallypersonal materialsorpersonal documents, are a typical instantiation for theProvenancepattern. A query should result in the identification of all things which have been created, produced or otherwise kept or aggregated by a person during his or her life. In an archive, personal estateswould specifically contain suchpersonalthings of or by an actor. Collections as personal estates would therefore be part of a query about the personal things of a specific person. Since personal estate is a quality given to a collection on account of its custodial acquisition by an archive, both patternsProvenanceandDocumentsare closely related in this regard. In cases where a question inquires into the (personal) things of or by a person, theDocumentspattern may be assumed as a third supplementary pattern, since it is important for covering the question.

Example - “Any personal materials by a particular person”

Context “First wife of [person name 1] (born as [person name 2 (maiden name)], 1899 in HH, died 1990 in Berlin).”

Q003-06-02barch “In which Berlin archive can I find personal materials regarding [person name 3]?”

Q003-06-02barch “In which Berlin archive can I find personal materials regarding [person name 3]?”