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Call for Proposals: Knowledge Organization within the Museum Domain

Special issue of Knowledge Organization



Guest editor: Melissa Gill



Knowledge Organization (KO) invites proposals for a special issue focused on 
knowledge organization within the museum domain. Museums, like libraries and 
archives, are information institutions for material culture. Museum knowledge 
organization is object- and context-centric, focusing on the unique 
instantiation of a particular object and its historical and cultural 
relationships. Although the objects collected by museums of art, natural 
history, anthropology, science, and technology are diverse in nature, these 
institutions find commonality in their treatment of objects as entities whose 
characteristics and contexts evolve. Museums document information about an 
object as it changes over time, within and outside of the particular 
institution's custody. The object's creation, acquisition, exhibition, 
conservation, and deaccession are captured and documented. Furthermore, museum 
labels, didactic text, and publications produce additional knowledge about 
objects. The information record, in addition to the original object itself, is 
important for stewardship and interpretation.



The heterogeneous, iterative, idiosyncratic, and sometimes subjective nature of 
museum objects has over the years manifested in a non-standardized approach to 
knowledge organization. Over the years efforts have been made to standardize 
museum data within and across domains, such as Cataloging Cultural Objects 
(CCO), Categories for the Description of Works of Art, (CDWA), SPECTRUM, 
Lightweight Information Describing Objects (LIDO), Darwin Core, and the CIDOC 
CRM. The increasing focus on digital engagement coupled with open access 
initiatives has intensified the need for metadata and its standardization in 
the museum domain.



In this special issue, KO aims at addressing the organization of knowledge in 
the museum from a diversity of perspectives; contextual, case-specific, 
theoretical, empirical, historical as well as contemporary perspectives, etc., 
are all relevant as long as they add value to the understanding of the museum 
domain as a knowledge organizing environment.



Please submit abstracts of approximately 500 words to the editor of this 
special issue at mg...@getty.edu<mailto:mg...@getty.edu> by April 15, 2017.



Full papers should fall within the range 6,000-10,000 words (see author 
instructions, http://www.isko.org/instructions.htm). Papers will undergo peer 
review.



Timeline

Deadline for abstracts: April 15, 2017

Notification to authors: May 15, 2017

Deadline for submission of full papers: June 15, 2017



For questions about this special issue, please contact the guest editor. All 
inquiries about the journal and manuscripts should be directed to the 
editor-in-chief, Richard P. Smiraglia, Professor, University of Wisconsin 
Milwaukee (k...@isko.org<mailto:k...@isko.org>).



Knowledge Organization (ISSN 0943-7444) is the official journal of ISKO, 
International Society for Knowledge Organization (http://www.isko.org/). It is 
published eight times each year by Ergon Verlag of Würzburg, Germany.


­­­ ______________________________________________

Melissa Gill
Digital Projects Manager
Digital Art 
History<https://getty.edu/research/scholars/digital_art_history/index.html>
Getty Research Institute

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