40 10 510 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cite the Project Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Method Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CONNECTIVITY Description An account of the resource <p>The idea of <em>Beautiful Spaces</em>&nbsp;is to expose the myriad ways in which pieces of the historical record are connected across diverse contexts, at a variety of scales, and with a range of implications. To that end, the project uses three primary tools built into <a title="Read about the digital platform on the Omeka website" href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/items/show/574" target="_blank">Omeka</a> to organize material and&nbsp;articulate forms of connectivity at Item level:</p> <h3>1. Item Types</h3> <p>Each Item within the site receives a "type" designation. The <a title="read more about Dublin Core here" href="http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/elements.shtml" target="_blank">Dublin Core Metadata Initiative</a> has a standard Item Type vocabulary. <em>Beautiful Spaces</em> uses that vocabulary but extends outward from it as well with custom Types. The typology is as follows:</p> <ul> <li>Abandoned Place</li> <li>Administrative Unit</li> <li>Annotation</li> <li>Antiquity</li> <li>Archival Record Group</li> <li>Contemporary Account</li> <li>Dacha Property</li> <li>Elite Residence</li> <li>Garden Location</li> <li>Geographical Feature</li> <li>Historical Map</li> <li>Member of the Crimean Tatar Elite</li> <li>Narration Fragment</li> <li>Original Map</li> <li>Person</li> <li>Repository</li> <li>Spatial Data</li> <li>Still Image</li> <li>Vineyard</li> </ul> <p><em>What is accomplished by using Item Types?</em></p> <ul> <li>Item Types establish hardwired links between Items of the same type, regardless of whether they derive from the same source or are used for the same purposes within the site.&nbsp;</li> <li>Items of the same type share the same array of metadata elements. This means that whenever you find yourself looking at a "Still Image" you will find it accompanied by a standard set of metadata &nbsp;</li> </ul> <h3>2. Item Relations</h3> <p>These describe one-to-one relationships. For this reason, an Item from a given Collection or of a given Item Type might relate to the rest of the project content in radically different ways than another Item of the same Type or Collection. Item Relations are the edges of the Beautiful Spaces network. They are displayed along with the rest of the Item-level metadata and are defined as follows:</p> <ul> <li>[This Item] annotates [This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;belongs to the same clan as&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;is derived from&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;owner of&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;served with&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;shares a common owner with&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item]&nbsp;visualizes&nbsp;[This Item]</li> <li>[This Item] is an attestation of the same place as [This Item]</li> </ul> <h3>3. Tags</h3> <p>A set of non-hierarchical keywords can serve as an excellent topic map of project content. As you would expect, here the set is composed of thematic, chronological, geographical, and methodological tags that describe one or more Items. For the most part, you can think of the tags as a curated set of Item attributes.&nbsp;They facilitate the identification of connections among groups of Items rather than one particular Item to another. Tags that highlight unique and/or isolated features are few and far between.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Method Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CURATION Description An account of the resource <p>Curation is, among other things, a means of establishing connectivity: either by making existing connections visible, or by forging new ones. Either way, the goal is to create (some semblance of) order from chaos, coherence from disarray, meaning from memory. In simplest terms, the act of curation involves selecting, organizing, and maintaining. Here that work is done not on artifacts or artworks, but on digitized versions of material objects, on documents, and on "born-digital" content.</p> <h3>Selectivity</h3> <p>Perhaps one day in the distant future&nbsp;<em>Beautiful Spaces&nbsp;</em>will emerge as a repository for all knowledge of Crimea under Russian rule. For now though, its contents are limited. Consciously limited. I have tried to include material that 1) speaks to the significance of physical space for understanding Crimea's own identity and its place within the Russian Empire, 2) represents much larger bodies of evidence, and 3) lends itself to digital representation. In other words, <strong>if the site has a boutique feel, that is by design</strong>. The overarching goal, of course, is to distill the wonderfully complex, variable, and multifaceted story of a place - and its people - without essentializing that story (or place, or people).&nbsp;</p> <h3>Metadata</h3> <p>The art of <em>Beautiful Spaces</em>, such as it is, lies in its metadata. Here metadata (data about data) is intended to facilitate citation, analysis, and contextualization.</p> <p>Omeka uses the Dublin Core metadata standards and I have abided by those standards whenever possible. Whenever that was not possible, I customized. In some cases that meant defining new metadata elements, in others by introducing new Item Types, etc. If I have done my job, each Item in this site should come braced with information about where I found it and where it resides, who produced it (and when), its genre, relevant contents, and location (where appropriate).</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">A note on language</span>: Crimea has been home to peoples of a dizzying array of ethnic and religious backgrounds, including Greeks, Armenians, Karaims, Germans, Ukrainians, and Turks. It has been (among other things) a Greek colony, a Genoese outpost, a Mongol ulus, a Tatar khanate, a Russian province, an autonomous Soviet socialist republic, an oblast within two different Soviet socialist republics, an autonomous republic within an independent Ukraine, an independent republic, and a republic of the Russian Federation. Crimea's history, therefore, has been written in many languages and dispersed throughout many archives. Its toponymy has been reinvented on several occasions (most notably in 1945, a year after the deportation of the Crimean Tatar population). Language and politics became inextricably linked long ago in Crimea and it can be difficult to write without the nagging sensation that one is somehow - albeit unintentionally - substantiating the claims of a certain set of actors by adopting a particular spelling of a placename.</p> <p>For the sake of consistency, I reproduce the names of places and individuals as they appear in the primary documents. Because the vast majority of my archival material is in Russian, Russian spellings occur frequently throughout the site. Whenever possible, I include the original Cyrillic along with my transliteration. I include alternate name attestations in the metadata whenever this is done in the sources (and it often is).&nbsp;</p> <h3>Collections</h3> <p>Collections bring together Items that share a common source, purpose, or defining feature. This is not entirely unlike the work done by tags, but there are a couple of important differences between tags and collections:&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>A tag is an attribute of a given Item. It is a piece of metadata. A Collection is a container for one or more Items.</li> <li>An Item can appear in one, and only one, Collection.&nbsp;By contrast, there is no limit to the number of tags assigned to a given Item. Assiging an Item to a Collection therefore privileges a particular attribute as crucial to the historical understanding of the Item.</li> <li>As site author, I can determine the order in which Items appear within a Collection and describe its organizing principles. This lends a Collection a bit more scholarly heft than a tag.</li> </ul> <p>In sum, while a Collection is not a terribly hierarchical construct, it does function differently than the site taxonomy. <br /><br />Meanwhile, unlike a "Narration," a Collection relies on its content to communicate its argument or perspective. Its goal is to evoke, through an accumulation of similar pieces of evidence, an impression or perhaps an idea, to cultivate interest, or to facilitate further analysis. That said, a few Collections exist simply as pools of reference information. <br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Beautiful Spaces Collections</span>&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>The Many Lives of Mirzas</li> <li>Bossoli's Album</li> <li>Demidov's Voyage</li> <li>Uvarov's Antiquities</li> <li>Dachas</li> <li>Ruins</li> <li>Estates</li> <li>Mosques</li> <li>State-Owned Gardens</li> <li>Vineyards</li> <li>Keppen's Antiquities</li> <li>Original Maps</li> <li>Source Maps</li> <li>Property Maps</li> <li>Biographical Sketches</li> <li>Archival Core</li> <li>Essential Published Sources</li> <li>Archives and Libraries</li> <li>Annotations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Method Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource LOCATION Description An account of the resource Geospatial context matters. Pure and simple. Producing geospatial content, however, is a complex process. [TEXT COMING SOON] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Method Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource NARRATION Description An account of the resource <p>Narration occurs at nearly every level of the project: in the maps, the Item metadata, the collections. But it occurs in two more explicit, intentional forms as well:</p> <p>Annotations:</p> <p>Sketches:&nbsp;Sketches resemble traditional forms, but are built on the same principles as the rest of the site. That is, they are rooted in - and stick close to - the Items that form the foundation of the project, and they aim to draw together seemingly disparate pieces in meaningful, perhaps even provocative, ways. They transpose some of the findings of the various mappings into textual format; they pose questions that will inform the curation of new collections, the addition of new items, and the articulation of new relationships and taxonomies. They are meant to be generative rather than comprehensive or conclusive. In simplest terms, they are as much starting points as any Item, annotation, or map.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Navigation Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Keyword Search Description An account of the resource <p>Use the search tool (top right of the site header) to search the full contents of all Items and Collections.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Navigation Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Advanced Search Description An account of the resource Do you crave a bit more control over the search mechanism? <a title="navigate by item type" href="/items/search" target="_self">This link will bring you to the main search page.</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Navigation Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Navigate by Collection Description An account of the resource <p>The vast majority of Items are gathered into Collections. <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/browse" target="_self">Browse the Collections.</a></p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributors Contributor Current Position Course Materials Assistant, Harvard Kennedy School Library and Knowledge Services Library Status while working on Beautiful Spaces Graduate Student Research Assistant Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christine Jacobson Description An account of the resource [] <a href="http://harvard.academia.edu/ChristineJacobson" target="_blank">Read more about Christine</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributors Contributor Current Position Instructional Technologist, FAS Academic Technology, Harvard University Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jeremy Guillette Description An account of the resource Jeremy has been a key collaborator since the inception of this project. He provides crucial technical support with the Omeka platform and has helped shape the underlying architecture of both the site and the project itself.&nbsp;<a href="http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/jeremy-guillette" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="https://atg.fas.harvard.edu/people/jeremy-guillette">Read more about Jeremy</a>.