FileMakerNames

Note: This page describes the use of the existing FileMaker Names database and documents recent changes made to it. See the names documentation page for more detailed instructions on working with FileMaker and adding new data.

Changes to Names database, late fall 2008

• Changed rolename and other_name fields to permit multiple values for individuals with more than one role or additional names
• Changed certain checkbox values in the languages field to make them easier to handle in XML --- and to look up the corresponding language codes (e.g. "ancient greek" has become "greek,_ancient" and "modern greek" is now "greek,_modern")

Changes to Names database, Sept. 16, 2008

• Changed nationality field to residence field that permits multiple values to be entered. The idea is to permit a faceted approach (much like we allow for person_role, geography_role, and cultural_role) for information about the multiple places a person may have lived during her life. Currently it's set up as an editable list to permit the addition of new places when needed

Changes to Names database, Sept. 15, 2008

• Modified person_role, geography_role, and cultural_role fields to permit multiple values (from our controlled vocabulary) in each
• Added a certainty_parent checkbox for use in conjunction with the parental_status field
• Created a new lcna field for collecting the Library of Congress name authority heading for each author in the database

Changes to Names database, Aug. 10 - Aug. 20, 2008

Interface

• Overview layout: The main page that is displayed when the Names database opens is now an Overview page that lists a series of tasks that are likely to be fairly routine during the data grooming and data entry phase of the grant. These include very simple things (find specific records, list all authors/publishers, create a new record) and slightly more advanced things (find flagged records of various sorts, find records that have been marked as requiring additional research, etc.). This page is now accessible via a button placed in the footer of the major layouts (Input, List).
• Input layout: This is the main layout for entering new information. It provides the complete set of fields that should, ideally, contain information for authors and publishers/printers. It is divided into four sections:
  1. Overview --- Name key, calculated _Name field, OT number and title of text in which the name first appears, and taxonomic information about the person's role
  2. Tracking --- Checkboxes for flagging and tracking records during the data entry and data grooming phases
  3. Name Details --- Full name information, including first, middle, last, and other names, as well as generational names, titles, honorifics, pseudonyms, and name variants
  4. Personal Details --- This section contains fields for recording details about the person's life, including dates of birth and death, place of birth and death, parental status, marital status, religious affiliation(s), socioeconomic status, and languages spoken/read. There are also fields for specifying the research status for a given personal detail.
• List layout: This layout primarily lists complete name information, tracking information, and fields for notes/queries. Records can easily be sorted by name, key, type, and ot number using buttons in the page header.

Data fields

Existing fields that haven't been changed (or have simply been regularized using lowercase; e.g. "Key" is now "key")

• key
• _Name
• ot
• RefNameCopy (this is pulled from the OT Database, so it was not regularized in lowercase out of a fear that doing so might muck things up)
• Title (this, too, is pulled from the OT Database; hence, no change)
• old_keys
• check
• change
• disambiguate
• duplicate
• honorific
• pseudonym
• sex
• born
• died
• flourished
• notes
• hypothesis

Existing fields that have been renamed (in some cases only slightly)

• forename (formerly FirstName)
• surname (formerly LastName)
• middlename (formerly MiddleName)
• birthname (formerly BirthName)
• rolename (formerly RoleName)
• nonbreaking_name (formerly Non-breakingName)
• other_name (formerly OtherName)
• name_variants (formerly Name Variants)

Existing fields for which data has been migrated to new field(s)

• person_role (formerly PersonType)
• geography_role (contains geographic information formerly contained in RefType, where it was combined with cultural domain information)
• cultural_role (contains cultural domain information formerly contained in RefType, where it was combined with geographic domain information)

Entirely new fields

• birth_place
• death_place
• nationality
• parental_status
• marital_status
• faith
• socioecon_status
• languages
• certainty_born
• certainty_died
• certainty_flourished
• certainty_birthplace
• certainty_deathplace
• certainty_parent
• certainty_marital
• certainty_faith
• certainty_language

Note: All of the new fields that begin with "certainty_" are simple checkboxes designed to accomplish the task, discussed in our Aug. 5 meeting, of tracking the status of our knowledge about the information contained in the corresponding personal details field. For example, when the "certainty_born" field is checked (meaning it has a value of "No") this indicates that we have conducted research on the birth date of the person in question but either (a) we haven't been able to find this information, and thus the corresponding "born" field is empty, or (b) we have entered information in the "born" but it needs to be verified with an authoritative source.

Data values

Personal taxonomy

In place of the original bipartite taxonomy (PersonType and RefType) for classifying types of people, we now have a three-part taxonomy that reflects the domains we at the beginning of August:

• Functional domain --- the person's function in relation to a WWP text; this is captured in the new person_role field
  • textbase_author --- people who are the authors of texts in our collection
  • imprint --- people whose names appear in the imprint of texts in our collections, namely, printers, publishers, booksellers
  • textbase --- people whose names appear in the content of texts in our collection
  • non-textbase --- WWP staff, encoders, etc.
  • reference--- I would suggest that we add this as a possible value as a way of including information on people who are mentioned or referenced in citations, bibliographies, advertisements, or titles but who are not textbase authors, printers, publishers, booksellers, or even really part of the "content" of our texts
• Geographic domain --- the geographic region (by continent) of the person; this information was formerly merged with the cultural domain in RefType
  • africa
  • asia
  • europe
  • north_america
  • south_america
• Cultural domain --- the cultural field(s) to which the person belongs; this information was formerly merged with the geographic domain in RefType
  • classical
  • fiction
  • history
  • myth
  • proverb
  • scripture --- for indeterminate Biblical material as well as non-Christian scripture (i.e. Torah, Koran, Talmud, the Upanishads, etc.)
  • scripture_OT --- Old Testament
  • scripture_NT --- New Testament

Personal details

• sex --- radio button
  • f = female
  • m = male
  • u = unknown
• born --- any date value, with accompanying prefix if needed, or "undetermined"; "c." = "circa", "p."= "post", "-" = B.C.E. date
• died --- any date value, with accompanying prefix as needed, or "undetermined"
• flourished --- date or date range, with accompanying prefix as needed, or "undetermined"; "/" character between dates indicates a range
• birth_place --- name of location, or "undetermined"
• death_place --- name of location, or "undetermined"
• nationality --- name of country of habitual or long-term residence, or "undetermined"
• parental_status --- radio button; indicates whether the person had children (including miscarriages) at any point during life
  • y = yes
  • n = no
  • u = unknown
• marital_status --- checkbox set; indicates what marital event(s) the person experienced during life; blank indicates "single"
  • married
  • widowed
  • divorced
  • annulled
• faith --- checkbox set; indicates what religious affiliation(s) the person professed at any point during life; blank indicates "undetermined"
  • catholic
  • orthodox
  • protestant
  • jewish
  • other
• socioecon_status --- to be determined (if we even choose to capture this information)
• languages --- checkbox set of all languages spoken or read by the person
  • arabic
  • dutch
  • french
  • german
  • greek
  • hebrew
  • italian
  • latin
  • scots
  • spanish
  • portuguese
  • welsh
• certainty_[foo] -- single checkbox whose value, when checked, equals "No" (meaning that additional research needs to be performed on corresponding data field)