FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2024

We propose a brief presentation of four conceptual elements that may underpin an automated cataloging process of archival materials, summarizing them through a free adaptation of the biblical Commandments. The chosen ones are:
 
• Thou shalt describe events about all things.
• Thou shalt univocal identify the event in linked properties and relationships.
• Thou shalt use equivalences to transform the captured external data into your metadata  standards.
• Thou shalt describe the documents in cascade.
 
These four theoretical pillars arise from an idea that challenges the traditional approach to the documentary process by reversing the object of analysis, which almost always has focused on the document. Therefore, the first and main commandment relies on this thought, and encourages us  to do it the other way around,  going from the analysis of the documents that report events to analyse events captured in documents... And let's see what happens.
 
The second commandment, and based on the experience of the semantic web, indicates that events must be defined as unique concepts described in properties and relationships, which are linked to other concepts contained in controlled vocabularies.
 
The third statement focuses on the capture of external data applying the principle of equivalence based on the transformation of these data into metadata with the desired standardized form in order to assign each concept its equivalent in the field where it is represented.
 
And finally, the fourth commandment suggests the process of describing documents in cascade mode. That is, to use the common metadata of an event and replicate them in all the documents that refer to it.