Question about hasCreationDate

[Sylvain Loiseau]

Dear all,

A seemingly simple question, but I’m having trouble finding a clear answer: is
https://www.ica.org/standards/RiC/RiC-O_1-1.html#hasCreationDate intended to express the date on which a resource (such as a Record) is created, or the date on which the material Record being described was created? I am inclined to think it is the latter, but I would appreciate confirmation.

If that is indeed the case, it raises a related question: how should one record the history of the description itself (e.g. when an entity was created or last updated), assuming this is something that needs to be tracked?

Best regards,

Sylvain

[Florence Clavaud]

Dear Sylvain

As specified in RiC-O (and in RiC-CM), when used, rico:hasCreationDate connects a Record Resource (as the message conveyed) or an Instantiation (as the inscription of this message on a carrier) to the Date when it was created. An Instantiation may have its own creation date, e.g. when it results from the digitization of an analogue one.

A Record Resource may describe another Record Resource (in which case it can be connected to the described Record Resource using rico:describesOrDescribed). RiC considers descriptions of record resources (or any other entity) as records. Therefore, such descriptions may have the same attributes or the same relations as any other Record Resource. RiC-O also defines two individuals, AuthorityRecord and FindingAid, as instances of both skos:Concept and rico:DocumentaryFormType, to be used when needed (see https://www.ica.org/standards/RiC/RiC-O_1-1.html#individuals).

See on this topic section 6 (Documenting Description) of RiC-CM 1.0, pp. 125-129. 

Many examples of such Records are available here: https://github.com/ICA-EGAD/RiC-O/tree/master/examples/examples_v1-1/NationalArchivesOfFrance/rdf-xml/recordResources, and in https://github.com/ICA-EGAD/RiC-O/tree/master/examples/examples_v1-1/NationalArchivesOfFrance/rdf-xml/agents (download and open any of the files stored there).

Hope it helps,

Florence Clavaud
chair of ICA/EGAD, lead of RiC-O development team