Meadhbh MacDougal

A Tale of Three Databases

Looking at these three data management systems, Indiana Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!), Smithsonian Institution's SIRIS and Wikipedia, I looked at how data management has changed over time. Many of the changes noted have to do with usability, that is how easy it is for an individual to access the information he or she needs in an efficient manner. I am also interested in the issue of validity, and how valid each of these systems is. What issues contribute to this actual or perceived validity?

Indiana's Save Outdoor Sculpture I begin by looking at Indiana's Save Outdoor Sculpture! initiative. I, like many students my age, typically go it the internet first to begin and/or completely conduct my research. SOS! is listed on the State of Indiana's government website under the Indiana Historical Bureau, the database, however is not located online. This means I had to go to the printed source--the library to access this information. In years past this would not have seemed like an inconvenience, but for many people today not being able to access the information they want where ever they want is a big deal. I will admit to putting this off because I simply did not want to have to go in search of it. The book itself, while containing a great deal of information that was fairly accessible, did not lend itself to very quick or accurate searching. If you know exactly what you are looking for (say the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Indianapolis)), there are ways to find it easily. If, however, you simply want to look up bronze sculptures you are pretty much out of luck. You would have to come through the entire (very large) book to find sculptures that fit this specific category. For someone who is used to online searches or someone just looking for general categories I really feel this book is not of great use. Even printed sources such as research journals have found ways to digitize the catalog of their information so that categorical searches can be made on an electronic database, then the printed article can be found in a library's collection. I understand that digitizing all of the information in Indiana's SOS! may be too large of a task, but an electronic search to go with the printed tome would be very helpful.

SIRIS

The next information management system that I tackled was SIRIS: Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. This is an electronic database housed on the Smithsonian Institution's website. It is open to the public, meaning anyone can search through it at any time. This data base covers many items in the Smithsonian's collection as well as objects that the Smithsonian has gathered information on. Many topics can be searched, but I focused on outdoor sculpture as it is the topic of my final project. I found the interface to be slightly hard to use at first. I did not see a field to type in a specific keyword (I found it later) so I used the browse and search option. I found that I was able to narrow my search for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Indianapolis) fairly easily, but it took about 5 steps of inputting a category that would limit my search. When I did discover the field to enter keywords I found that the name was not specific enough to give me a very good search. I was also disappointed to see that the information did not include a picture of this sculpture. It seems the content from entry to entry varies greatly. Overall, however I was encouraged by my ability to search through the database by category and the ease of having access at any point day or night is very important to me. I think the search option should be refined, and objects in the database could be given more dis ambiguous names to ease the search.

Wikipedia

Finally, I looked at Wikipedia as another incantation of data management. Wikipedia is a large website with a simple keyword search option. If the keyword does not turn up any results the user is informed, if on the other hand, many results are found a list is given with descriptions called the "dis ambiguous list" so that they user can make an informed decision on the page he or she wants to view. The first article I viewed was about bronze sculpture. The introductory paragraph gave information about what bronze sculpture is, why it is popular and the history of its use. The information is interesting and it continues with discussion of how to create bronze sculpture. The next section lists sculptures, and the next subjects for bronze sculpture. These final two sections do not have any real content, they are simply a list of internal Wikipedia links that give more information on artists and subjects. These links are useful for further information, however, I would have liked to see more content written about this topic in the actual article. Wikipedia has standards for minimum entries, but the actual content for each article varies greatly. This can be a weakness as not every subject is discussed fully. This article did use pictures liberally down the right side of the article, presumably to demonstrate how many different bronze sculptures there are. Overall, the pictures were helpful for illustration and did not distract greatly from the text.

Following the link under the sculptures section the second page I examined was that of Henry Moore. This page was longer than that on bronze sculpture and included a content list of the sections of the article. The article was full of both internal links and citation notes. At the end of the article there is a list of citations as well as a reference section and reading suggestions. This article demonstrates good academic integrity as far as sourcing goes and reflects one of the better Wikipedia articles I have read. This article has many images scattered throughout as well as an additional gallery at the bottom. These images, while fantastic for illustration do actually tend to distract from the reading as there is at least one photo in each section.

I used the Henry Moore article as a platform for my next page. There was an internal link for Chac Mool, a stone sculpture attributed to the Toltec peoples. I knew that this article would have less information as it is not as famous as Henry Moore or as ubiquitous as bronze sculpture. Indeed, it is a very short article that describes the sculpture, gives a brief history and provides possible explanations for the name and subject of the sculpture. The article contains many internal Wikipedia links but does not have an extensive citation or reference list. The article does not provide much information that could not be gleaned from looking at the photo, possibly because the information does not exist or it was just poorly researched. This article is fairly weak, and illustrates a of the weakness of Wikipedia: if an article is not researched properly or there is not much information about a topic then the wiki article will suffer.

At the end of each Wikipedia article there is a list of categories that link this article with others. I think this category section is sort of like a bad tagging system. The articles on bronze sculpture and Chac Mool had only four and three categories respectively, meaning that a person would have to really search for these specific articles instead of looking for a category. The Henry Moore article had many categories, but it was clear that this had been a thoroughly researched and well written article so it makes sense that the author(s) would take the time to provide many tags to get to it. The tags used, however, may not be the best for accessing this article. I think more care should be taken to link articles, no matter how small the link may appear to be.

I want to end by talking about validity. I had mentioned it at the beginning and it was covered a little bit in my discussion of Wikipedia. I think both the Indiana SOS! and SIRIS have the image of being valid sources of information, where as Wikipedia does not. The main reason for this is the perceived authority of both the Indiana Historical Bureau and the Smithsonian Institution. Wikipedia in contrast is written and edited by the very people who use it. There is little content control perceived and almost no one is seen as an expert. I am not sure this perception is accurate; after all, the information contained in Indiana SOS! and SIRIS was collected and created by volunteers. These volunteers are the same type of people who now edit Wikipedia. Sure both projects have been consolidated by institutions in authority, but their genesis is the same as Wikipedia's. What is interesting is that the other two databases do not provide anyway to verify their information--no links to outside sources, no real reference list. As long as the editor of a wiki article can show where they got their information, then I think it is just as valid if not more so than the other two databases.

Meadhbh MacDougal (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)Meadhbh MacDougal

Materials and Techniques

I've noticed that this is an area that isn't included in many of the articles that I've read so far. I don't think there needs to me major emphasis on materials and techniques and it is something that could be briefly discussed in the condition portion of the articles. Just using certain material or technique words already has some of these articles listed on keyword searches such as "The Herron Arch 1" for a search on aluminum sculpture. Having a little more information about these issues might help shed some light on the condition their in. For instance, knowing that limestone has high water solubility and is easily damaged by acid helps explain why there appears to be water damage on "Indiana Limestone" even though it is partially protected by an overhang.

Book Research

For those of us who still have the time and want to look more into techniques I have found a few books that may be of use. Unfortunately, most of the books in IU's libraries detailing technique live in Fort Wayne, Bloomington or Gary so this list is rather short:

"Encyclopedia of Sculpture Techniques" by John Mills NB1170 .M55 2005 Located in Bloomington and Fort Wayne (it looks like a really good resource if anyone will be in either of those cities over the weekend. Or, it is located at the Marion County Central Library in the Adult Non-fiction area call number: 730.403.

"Encyclopedia of Sculpting Techniques" by John Plowman Located at the Marion County Central Library in the Adult Non-fiction area call number: 731.46

"Bronze Casting: a manual of techniques: by Thomas Guy at the Marion County Central Library in the Adult Non-fiction area call number 731.456

"Methods for modern sculptors" by Ronald D Young. at the Marion County Central Library in the Adult Non-fiction area call number 731.4

"The sculptor's eye : looking at contemporary American art" by Greenberg, Jan NB198 .G67 1993 Located in Herron’s Library

"Sculpture : tools, materials, and techniques" by Verhelst, Wilbert NB1140 .V47 1988 Located in Herron’s library

Wikipedia Categories

Wikipedia does have a category for sculpture techniques but it seems pretty general (and slightly weird as it lists my talk page. Perhaps I did something wrong?), still if you have defined a specific technique for creating your sculpture it might be helpful to add it as a category.

Wikipedia Articles about Materials or Techniques

Many of the Wikipedia pages for specific materials have little or no discussion on how they have been used in art as metals such as steel and aluminum have many other industrial uses, however a few are helpful. There are pages for bronze and bronze sculpture that discuss techniques and uses which would be helpful to link to for those who have bronze as their sculptural medium. The article on stainless steel includes a brief section on how it has been used in art and architecture. One technique not listed under the sculpture techniques category is abrasive blasting also known as sand blasting, which can be used to carve stone, especially granite.

External Links

There are a multitude of websites dedicated to sculpture but it is important to look into who created the page and why. While the resources for a Wikipedia article do not have to be a rigorously tested as those for a peer reviewed article it is important for us to use reliable resources.

Orphaned non-free image File:Indiana Limestone Detail of Top Discoloration.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Indiana Limestone Detail of Top Discoloration.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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Orphaned non-free image File:Orange Curves Detail of Dirt Accumulation Inside.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Orange Curves Detail of Dirt Accumulation Inside.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ww2censor (talk) 14:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)