CDASH Place Items

This page discusses the notion of CDASH Place Items as catalog records describing various types of places within the digital collection management environment provided by Omeka-S.

For more information on the concept of an Omeka Item and the role of CDASH place Items, see CDASH Schema.

Topic Index

CDASH Place Items: Metadata Properties Dictionary

Name	Description
Resource Template Pull-Down	All CDASH Places use the CDASH Place template.
Class Pull-Down	Choose Location.
Place Name Text, Required	The name of the place. In the case of Address type places, this is the address. In the case of a building, monument or park, it might be the name of the thing.
Alternate Name Text	This property is available for occasions when a place may be known by more than one name.
CDASH Folder Text, Required	The name of the physical folder in the Building Files where the original hard-copy document is filed. This value is filled in automatically for items imported through the bulk import process.
Place Type Controlled Vocabulary Required	Each place Item is assigned a type -- e.g. Building, Park, Monument, etc. During the bulk import most places are of type Address. The type may be changed for later. To change the type of place, choose a value from the list. CDASH Place Types.
Description Text	A description of the place which might appear as a caption.
Place Use/s Text	A place may have a use. For example, a buildng may serve as a bank. If possible, choose a value from the CDASH List of Uses or choose from Library of Congress Subject Headings or the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
Building Style/s Controlled Vocabulary	Designed places such as buildings or monuments may ba categorrized according to their stylistic influences. Choose a value form the CDASH list of styles or use the the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
Architect, Developer, Builder Text	The name of the individual(s) or firm(s) that deserve credit for the design or construction of the thing. You may use Annotations to describe the role played by each. Hopefully you can find validated spellings for architect names at the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
Neighborhood Text	Each cdash document item is assigned to a CHC neighborhood. To enter a neighborhood manually, use the button provided to pick from the list of CHC neighborhoods. The neighborhood name is disambiguated by the addition of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA to make CDASH records compliant with cataloging standards.
Street Address Text	This is normally the address associated with the CDASH place associated with this document item. Referenced above.
Appear Date Date	The date when the existence of the thing is first recorded. It may be the year built, or it may be the date of the first map that records the existence of the thing. A plain four-digit year is sufficient. Use annotations to clarify the sources or events associated with this date.
Date Renovated Date	When the dates of renovations are known these may be entered here. Use annotations to describe the rennovations associated with each date.
Disappear Date Date	For places and objects that no longer exist, use this field to record the date that reflects the first evidence of the disappearance of the object. Use annotations to refer to the related event or source.
Special District or Designation/s Text, URL	Enter the name of any onservation or historic district or historical designation that applies to this property. Feel free to use the URI type entries to add hyperlinks to the official descriptive pages.
MACRIS Inventory Number Text, URL	When a document or a place is connected with a specific referent of the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System, Use the URI button to set the Label field to be the MACRIS ID, and the URI field to the landing page for the related MACRIS Resource. After saving, check that the result performs as a clickable link.
Assessing Map Lot URL	Optionally use this field to add a reference to the Assessor's Map-Lot. References can be found on the CDASH map.
GIS Buildng ID Text	Optionally use this field to add a reference to the GIS Buildng ID for buildings. References can be found on the CDASH map.
Street Name Text	The street name portion of the address may be useful for filtering/faceting results.
Street Sort Key text, Required, Private	This string provides a useful way of sorting items according to their street address. This key conxists of the "_" delimited street name, concatenated with an 8 digit string consisting of the house number laft-paded with zeros. The final two characters of the key consists of the two letter abbreviation of the document type. Example: Massachusetts_Av_00000077_IE This value is normally assigned by the CDASH Doucument Item Uploader.
CDASH Place Identifier text, Required	Create a place ID begining with "cdp_" then the unique address name of that place. All spaces are replaced with underscores. Example: "cdp_77_Massachusetts_Ave" or "cdp_Edward_Richardson_House". Must be unique.
Collection text	Refers to a local collection and bibliographic citation. Defaults to: Cambridge Historical Commission, Digital Architectural Survey and History
Item Set Omeka Item Set	In order to appear on the map. each Place item should be assigned to the CDASH Place item set.

Controlled Vocabularies for Places

The following lists are used as pick-lists to normalize the assignment of key-words to CDASH Place Items.

Place Types

Each CDASH Place is assigned to one place type. At the bulk cataloging stage these are all plain street addresses. Later in the data enrichment phase. Historical Commission staff may create new place items or correct or enhance existing items to better reflect the subject matter of the related documents. For this effort, it is necessary to try to cover at least 95% of the possible place -types with controlled vocabulary pick-lists.

Address:
Building:
Streets and Squares: These places refer to stretches of streets and squares. Their spots are located in rights-of-way. When a neighborhood or survey district boundary is nearby, try to put the spot in the most appropriate district.
Bridge:
Object: This category will include but is not limited to:
- monuments
- benches
- flagpoles
- fences
- signs
- public art
- water fountains
Open Space: broad category with future option to parse into subgroups (see below). Examples: Charles River Reservation, Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Golf Course, and the Harvard Science Center Plaza. This category will include but is not limited to some of the items below. As we handle the survey files, it will be useful for us all to observe and think about items that may fall into this category and keep in mind possible subcategories, which will include:
- bodies of water (term still TBD)
- cemeteries
- parks

CDD Neighborhoods

This list comes from the Community Development Department Neighborhoods layer.

East Cambridge
MIT
Wellington-Harrington
The Port
Cambridgeport
Mid-Cambridge
Riverside
Baldwin (Agassiz)
Neighborhood Nine
West Cambridge
North Cambridge
Cambridge Highlands
Strawberry Hill

CHC Survey Areas

East Cambridge
Mid Cambridge
Cambridgeport
Old Cambridge
Northwest Cambridge

Terms TBD for Enrichment Phase

After the semi-automated creation of CDASH Place Items, staff will be able create new place items or to enrich the automatically created ones. In this enrichment phase, it will save time and promote consistency to have frequently used terminology available in drop-down lists.

These lists should be prepared and approved by a subject-matter expert.

Users will be offered the opportunity to choose terms from one of the following.

Editors will have the ability to choose from these authorities or they can enter free-text.

It is not necessary to have these lists ready right away.

Building Use

Single-Family Residential
Two-Family Residential
Three-Family Residential
Apartment Building/Multi-Family Residential
Commercial
Mixed-use
Hospital/Medical Building
Religious Building
Industrial
Institutional
Education
Garage
Stable/Carriage house
Shed/Out-Building
Gas Station/Service Station
Recreational
Utilities
Other

Building Style

First Period/Post-Medieval English
Georgian
Federal
Greek Revival
Gothic Revival
Italianate
Second Empire
Stick/Eastlake
Queen Anne
Shingle Style
Richardsonian Romanesque
Romanesque Revival
Vernacular
Colonial Revival
Classical Revival
Tudor
Arts and Crafts
Spanish Revival/Mission
Commercial
Beaux Arts
Art Deco/Moderne
International
Mid-Century Modern
Minimal Traditional
Ranch/Split-level
Contemporary
Brutalism
Shed
Post-Modern
Neo-Traditional
Georgian Revival
Other

Buildng Material(s)

Wood (clapboard)
Wood (shingle)
Vinyl
Cement-board
Asphalt
Asbestos
Brick
Stucco
Stone
Limestone
Concrete
Glass
Metal
Other