Question on Representing Magnetic Tapes in RiC

[Valentín Mansilla]

Dear all, I am pleased to participate in this very interesting forum for the first time. I would like to ask a brief question, as I would appreciate some feedback before proceeding. 

I am currently cataloguing ethnographic magnetic tapes as part of my PhD project. I was wondering whether, from a RiC perspective, it would be appropriate to use the Record entity to represent the magnetic tape as a whole and the Record Part entity to represent each track, since the tracks often have mixed provenance, involving different agents, places, dates, topics, and so on.

Thank you in advance for your insights. 

Kind regards,

Valentin Mansilla

[Richard Williamson]

Dear Valentín,

Very nice question, thank you for asking it! I think what I'd first
and foremost suggest is that RiC is very flexible and
non-prescriptive, allowing its users to make the judgement of whether
this is a Record / Record Part or, say, Record Set / Record situation
:-). There is quite a lot about this in RiC-AG at the following link,
as you may well have seen already :-).

https://ica-egad.github.io/RiC-AG/faq--record_or_record_set.html

Without knowing much about it, I would probably be inclined here to
consider each track a Record, and the tape as a whole either as a
Record Set or itself a Record (this being permitted too). For it seems
to me that each track can likely be viewed as 'independently'
documenting something, i.e. there is a certain
'completeness'/'self-sufficiency' to each track in terms of what it is
documenting, which is one aspect RiC-AG emphasises as relevant when
making this kind of judgement.

An aspect to consider as to whether the tape as a whole is judged as a
Record Set or Record could be whether it would make much difference to
its 'identity' if a track or two was lost; if it would not, it might
be best considered a Record Set, otherwise it might be best considered
a Record. It is a bit difficult for me to be more concrete without
knowing more, but if one views the tape as 'a collection of
ethnographic recordings illustrating the X culture', this would likely
be more 'Record Set'-like I think, whereas 'the ethnographic
recordings made by anthropologist A on his/her field trip in 1963'
could be viewed as a Record, i.e. as documenting that field trip or
that anthropologist's work. If a track is missing in the latter case,
this would likely be important to note, as that track might e.g.
change the perception of the anthropologist's work.

Not sure if that is helpful? Just ask again if not :-). Other thoughts
from anybody out there are very welcome!

Best wishes,
Richard

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[pieters...@gmail.com]

Good day Valentin

 

Short answer

Yes. Model the tape as a Record Resource and the tracks as Record Parts (or as separate Record Resources where tracks need independent curatorial lives). Capture track-level provenance as relations and Events in the RiC graph, and store the assertion metadata (who asserted it, when, evidence, confidence) on the relations themselves - RiC's intended pattern. For AI or algorithmic suggestions, capture the algorithm run as an Agent and write inference-provenance evidence that the relation references.

 

Why

- RiC-CM treats context as a graph where relations carry meaning. A tape is a single physical carrier (Record Resource) whose internal components - tracks - can legitimately have different provenances. Representing tracks as Record Parts preserves the physical whole/part relationship while letting you attach separate provenance chains to each part.

- RiC explicitly allows relations to have properties (start/end dates, asserting agent, evidence, confidence). That is the right place to record the differing provenance (who asserted that Track 2 was created by Agent X on Date Y in Place Z) rather than forcing all provenance onto the tape-level record.

- If some tracks are functionally independent (different creators, reused tracks, later editing), prefer modelling tracks as distinct Record Resources linked to the tape via hasPart/isPartOf. RiC is agnostic about granularity; both are valid depending on how the data will be used.

 

Practical modelling pattern (entities and relations)

Record Resource: (tape) - physical carrier; identifier, physical description, carrier type.

Record Part: (track) - component of the tape; track number, duration, format, technical note.

Agent: - person/corporate/collective (performer, recorder, donor).

Activity: - creation, editing, transfer, digitisation, accession, cataloguing.

Event: - custody change, migration (tape to digital), accession, appraisal, disposition.

Place: - recording place, custody locations.

Mandate: - donor deed, copyright, access restriction.

Relations: - typed edges such as RecordResource hasPart RecordPart; RecordPart wasCreatedBy Agent; RecordPart hasSubject Topic; RecordPart hasOrHadCustodian Agent; Activity generated RecordPart. Put provenance metadata (assertedBy, evidence, confidence) on the relation.

 

Where to record "who asserted what"

On relations and on Events: RiC recommends that assertions and their evidence live with the relation: the relation carries properties (assertedBy, assertedAt, evidenceRef, confidence).

For machine-aided assertions (audio analysis, AI diarisation), record an Evidence/Assertion relation pointing to the algorithm run (as an Agent), its parameters, a confidence score, and a reference to a supporting artefact (spectrogram, transcript excerpt). Heratio's AI inference provenance pattern fits here as the evidence object the relation references.

Also record Events for observable facts (custody transfers, digitisation). These become part of the Record Part's provenance chain and enable path queries like "who had custody of track 3 between 1982 and 1990?"

 

Groete / Regards

Johan Pieterse

http://heratio.theahg.co.za/

082 337-1406

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[Silvia Gattafoni]

Hi Valentín.

Following your observation that each track may involve different agents, dates, places, and circumstances of creation, it seems more appropriate to treat each track as an independent Record and the magnetic tape as the carrier that brings them together. While the recordings share the same physical support, their contexts of creation may be sufficiently distinct to justify describing them as separate records.

I understand that, from a RiC perspective, what matters most is not the physical carrier itself but the context in which the record was created. Therefore, when a track has sufficient contextual autonomy, it can reasonably be understood as a documentary unit in its own right. The tape remains important, but as the material entity that contains multiple records rather than as a single Record composed of parts.

That said, I am still learning my way around RiC myself, so I'll be very interested to hear what the experts think!

Best, 

Silvia

Libre de virus.www.avast.com

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[Richard Williamson]

Thank you very much Silvia and Johan (we had not seen each others' posts when we posted :-))! Silvia's perspective about considering a track a Record is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind, but Silvia put it more eloquently :-).

I mainly wished to note that the suggestion that both Silvia and Johan made, and which I did not consider, namely to not consider the tape itself a Record Resource itself, only a physical medium, is definitely an entirely valid possibility too, in addition to the two I discussed. I.e. one might consider the collection of tracks upon the tape not to be significant/noteworthy in its own right intellectually. Maybe one does consider the tracks to be part of some larger Record Set, but an Instantiation of that Record Set might consist of multiple tapes, including the one Valentiń asked about; there might be no Record Set defined for exactly that one tape :-).

Best wishes,

Richard 

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[Silvia Gattafoni]

Thank you both, Richard and Johan. too. Yes, I think this is a very interesting discussion.

Perhaps one conclusion that emerges from our three comments is that the key question may not be whether a track should be modelled as a Record Part or as a Record Resource, but rather how the documentary unit is identified in the first place. If some or all of the tracks share a common context of creation, it may make sense to model them as parts of a broader documentary unit. If the only thing they share is a physical carrier, then it may be more appropriate to consider the tape primarily as a physical medium and the tracks as the records themselves.

Best,

Silvia

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[Richard Williamson]

A nice point of view Silvia, thank you! 

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[Oesterlen, Eve]

Oesterlen, Eve reacted to your message:

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From: records_in_c...@googlegroups.com <records_in_c...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Richard Williamson <richard.william...@gmail.com>
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To: Records_in_C...@googlegroups.com <Records_in_C...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Records in Contexts users] Question on Representing Magnetic Tapes in RiC

 

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[Oesterlen, Eve]

Oesterlen, Eve reacted to your message:

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From: records_in_c...@googlegroups.com <records_in_c...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Richard Williamson <richard.william...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 25 June 2026 09:37:57
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Subject: Re: [Records in Contexts users] Question on Representing Magnetic Tapes in RiC

 

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[Valentín Mansilla]

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your feedback. I read your ideas carefully and I am glad that the question has been a trigger for building common criteria. 

I think the main issue with prioritizing only the content of the magnetic tapes (at least the ones I'm working with) 

is that tapes belonging to the same collection can be highly heterogeneous. There are some cases in which all the tracks are autonomous, others in which all the tracks belong to the same session, and, in between those two poles, there are hybrid cases in which the amount of independent and "dependent" tracks vary. 

For example, one single tape could contain:

- some tracks belonging to the same session (same date, place, researcher) where only the interlocutors change, and

- some autonomous tracks in which place, date, and agents are diverse 

If we prioritize just the content it could be represented as:

- Record Set (Magnetic tape)

    -- Record Set [3 tracks belonging to the same session, so not 100% autonomous, but splitted in tracks] 
                 -- Record part (Track 1) 

                 -- Record part (Track 2) 

                 -- Record part (Track 3) 

    -- Record (Track 4) [autonomous]

    -- Record (Track 5) [autonomous]

   

I'm not sure whether this would be the best solution when it comes to implementing the frontend for users' visualization... however, I will think a bit more carefully and I will come back to you with clearer diagrams and ideas to discuss.

Thank you very much again for your feedback.

Kind regards, 

Valentin 

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[CLAVAUD Florence]

Dear Valentin,

 

 

I would suggest you consider each item included in the Record Set resulting from the same session as a Record, not a Record Part (Record Part being defined as a constituent of a Record).

Also, in this very specific case, like other people who already reacted, I would probably not consider a magnetic tape is a Record Set. A Record Set is a group of items sharing some intellectual features. In this specific case, it seems that the only shared feature of these tracks on the same magnetic tape is that they were physically recorded on this tape by the author(s) of the ethnographic interviews/survey at different times; this is not a shared content feature. While as you said the tracks produced during the same session by the same researcher (which could be described as an Activity or Event) are a Record Set. And the whole collection is of course also a Record Set, as its constitutive parts have the same provenance (the people/researchers or team who constituted it).

The be more precise, the content of each track is a Record, and the inscription of this content on the magnetic tape is an Instantiation, which has its own physical characteristics. If this inscription has, for instance, been copied on another tape later, or digitized, the result may be considered another Instantiation of the same Record.

Following this perspective, the magnetic tape itself is just a carrier or medium. Note that we do not have any Carrier entity in RiC for now, just some attributes of Instantiation in RiC-CM, and relations between the Instantiation and the CarrierType, or CarrierExtent, or (more appropriate here) InstantiationExtent. This allows you, in this case, to describe each track, or series of tracks on which a Record of Record Set is inscribed; it is more difficult to describe the magnetic tape itself if you wish to do so. We will probably add a Carrier class to RiC-O when we develop RiC-O 2.0 (and consider adding a Carrier entity to RiC-CM). Meanwhile, if you need it, you could extend RiC-CM or RiC-O and add a Carrier entity/class, subentity/subclass of Thing.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

Florence Clavaud

Chair of ICA/EGAD, lead of RiC-O development team

Head of the Lab, Archives nationales de France

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