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Distributing SHIC in machine readable form
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It will not have escaped your notice that almost all of the so-called 'news' on this page is about four years old! So what's been happening since then? Well not a lot of activity on the part of the Working Party I'm afraid but SHIC is far from dead. It continues to be used by increasing numbers of museums and has played a part in a number of interesting information retrieval projects, not to mention being translated into German! Also the SGML version mentioned below has migrated to XML. I will try to post some details of these activities as soon as I can, but currently pressure of work prevents much SHIC involvement on my part. Meanwhile, apologies to anybody who recently tried to use the links to the mda web site lower down this page. The mda URLs changed some time ago but hopefully all broken links have now been restored. 
The subject of 20th Century collecting cropped up recently in the museum newsgroup museum-l. In an interesting response, Pat Reynolds of Buckinghamshire County Museum revealed that she has found SHIC useful in identifying gaps in her collections which should be filled by proactive collecting. I know other museums have used SHIC in this way but this is the first time I have seen a written accouunt so I am grateful to Pat for allowing me to reproduce the full text of her posting here.
At a full meeting of the Working Party on 20 March 1997 we welcomed Richard Light to the team. Richard has been a friend and supporter of SHIC almost from its inception, originally as an observer for the MDA (for whom he worked for many years). Now, as a freelance consultant specialising in SGML, XML and museum documentation, his expertise will be invaluable as we consider how best to make SHIC available in machine readable form.
A major aim of the SHIC Working Party at present is the dissemination of SHIC in digital form. This is discussed further below. In parallel with the efforts of the SHIC Working Party, a SHIC user has been independantly developing a machine readable version of SHIC in the form of a Windows Help file. More information will be available once the Working Party have discussed distribution options with its developer. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested, e-mail me and I will pass on further information as soon as any decision has been reached concerning distribution.
The Working Party hopes to prepare some additional activity subdivisions in the near future. Subdivisions for fishing and brewing have been under consideration for some time. Printing and textile production subdivisions are also in preparation. We would be pleased to hear from anyone with expertise in any of these fields who would be willing to contribute ideas and help develop these subdivisions.
Ideas for other activity subdivisions would also be welcomed.
We all know that SHIC needs further work. With this in mind, we included a suggestions form in the Second Edition. Sadly, few users have so far got round to sending us their problems and/or ideas. The Working Party will continue trying to improve SHIC but we need feedback from users to ensure that we address your particular needs. Don't just tell your colleagues about your ideas for improvement, please use the forms and let the Working Party know what you want. If you prefer, e-mail your suggestions to me, preferably using the headings which appear on the form.
Whilst we have some idea who has purchased SHIC, there is no comprehensive list of those institutions which are actively using it. Such a list would be very useful to us but might also be of value to existing or prospective new users. We would welcome feedback on this. If you want to notify us that you are an active user, please provide the following information:
If we get a good response and there is a demand for this information, we may publish this list within the SHIC Web Pages.
The MDA has published a cut-down version of SHIC under the title Simple subject headings. This is aimed at those museums which do not require as much detail as is offered in the very comprehensive SHIC system. Just the top three tiers of the SHIC hierarchy are provided. The third level scope notes have been specially rewritten by SHIC Working Party member Stuart Holm to ensure that the classification remains comprehensible in its truncated form.
The Working Party agreed to a request from the MDA to use the SHIC headings in this way as we were assured that there was a pressing need for this. However, we have some reservations about simply trimming off all headings below the third level. We believe that museums that find SHIC too complex really need to keep intact those parts of the hierarchy which are relevant to their particular collections and just truncate the rest at a higher level. This has been done very effectively for small museums in Dorset by Tom Craig , County Museums Advisor. He has prepared a SHIC based classification which omits subjects which are of no relevance to the museums he advises (such as coal mining) but includes the full hierarchy for subjects of local significance (such as stone quarrying). Perhaps, with Tom's permission, a sample of his classification might be made available on the SHIC web pages at some future date.
Meanwhile, anyone interested in finding out more about the MDA's Simple subject headings can view it on their web site. The rewritten third level scope notes should prove helpful to anyone who decides to follow Tom Craig's more focused approach to simplifying SHIC.
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SHIC has existed in machine readable form since publication of the first edition but only from the early 1990s has it been accessible from a PC. Even then, the main classification and the index were in different formats and required particular DTP and database software for access.
Now, thanks to the efforts of Richard Light (formerly of the MDA and now a freelance consultant) we have the whole thing marked up using SGML (Standard Generalised Mark-up Language). This will make it far more accessible in the future and the SHIC Working Party will be meeting soon to resolve how it will be distributed.
Ideally, we would like to place SHIC in the public domain and make it freely downloadable over the Internet. Unfortunately, the SHIC Working Party cannot guarantee ongoing funding from outside sources for future development and must safeguard sales income.
We have been approached by several software developers interested in making SHIC available within their museum databases and collections management systems. This is potentially the best way of making the classification available to computer users as it could be accessed directly from within their database.
We hope to resolve this issue soon, meanwhile anyone wanting a machine readable version or with any observations to make on the subject is very welcome to get in touch.
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Printed copies of SHIC can be purchased from:
| mda, The Spectrum Building, The Michael Young Centre, Purbeck Road, Cambridge CB2 2PD United Kingdom. | |||
| Tel: | UK 01223 415760 | International +44 1223 415760. | |
| Fax: | UK 01223 415960 | International +44 1223 415960. | |
| E-mail: | mda@mda.org.uk. | ||
| Web site: | http://www.mda.org.uk/descbib.htm#shic. | ||
If you are interested in a digitised version of SHIC, see the note on SHIC in machine readable form above.
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| Stuart's Home Page |
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