Page 54 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 3: Notational System

Self Assessment Notes

State whether the following statements are true or false:
9. Dewey recognized the usefulness of form subdivisions for organizing the large number
of items.

10. The DDC has a reasonably low degree of mnemonics.
11. A simple enumeration of two thousand subjects would be overwhelming.
12. The notational system scales up indefinitely.

3.4 Types of Notational System

A specific document instance of the notation system – a score – should comprise a guide to aid in
the re-creation or re-performance of the work. A formal notation system must be capable of
describing all-digital, all-physical, or hybrid art works. Many media art works combine digital
with physical components and the descriptive needs of discrete digital and non-traditional
physical works are similar enough to justify an integrated notation system. It should be able to
describe not just the aggregate work, but also make explicit the structure of sub-components of
the work. Details such as technical data, creator info, rights info, and related choices may vary
between different parts of a work.

A notation system should provide broad interoperability with other descriptive and technical
standards that digital media art interacts with, including cultural informatics, library and museum
standards, and media industry standards. There are many prototype standards (several based on
XML/RDF) being tested in the museum and library communities for managing and providing
online access to cultural materials such as books and artworks. A notation system for media art
is distinct from these in that it needs to include the level of detail needed not just to describe the
works, but to re-create them. However, interoperability with these other prototype standards is
needed so that documentation for media art works does not remain marginalized, but can
instead easily co-exist alongside traditional art documentation within larger databases or systems.

The notation system should employ an expression format that is standardized so that the
development of software tools, training, documentation, and support is feasible for the arts
community and leverages larger community or industry efforts. To allow durable and transparent
scores, the notation system should integrate both human-readable (natural language) layers
that allow high-level functionality and machine-readable (artificial/encoded language) layers
that allow for automated processing. A notation system should be practical, cost-effective,
scaleable, and tractable. It should allow varying levels of implementation from minimal scores
to complex scores that are expanded upon at various points in the life cycle of the work.

Notes Addressing these concerns results in a more useful and accurate conceptual model
by addressing media art works not as abstract and isolated entities, but rather as entities
in the complicated context of the real world.

The development of a system of formal notation for media art first requires the development of
a conceptual model. The formal notation system could be considered an expression of that
model. A score is a specific instance of notation. In music, the conceptual model structures sound
into pitch and rhythm, etc., the notation system is composed of notes and other graphics used to
write music, and a score is a specific combination of notes in a musical work.

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