Contributor(s): Steven Weinberger, Andres Montano.
Quick link: current version of the spreadsheet. Only download this if you know what you are doing – otherwise read below first.
The SHANTI Knowledge Maps of Subjects has a sophisticated online editing interface for creating and revising subjects records. However, when one is simultaneously working on the description of many subjects, it is far easier to work in an offline format like a spreadsheet, since you can rapidly work on multiple records simultaneously without having to open and close modules for each piece of data in the online interface. Thus, we have created a program to import subjects descriptions from a standardized spreadsheet into the Knowledge Maps of Subjects. It is essential that the formatting of the spreadsheet and data follows exactly the guidelines described below. The import will ONLY work with the Knowledge Maps of Subjects Standard Importation Spreadsheet, or a reduced version of it (that is, a derivative produced by deleting columns). Thus if work has been entered into a table, it must first be imported into a standardized spreadsheet; and data entered into alternative spreadsheet formats will need to be imported into the standardized spreadsheet. Once data is correctly entered in the spreadsheet, however, importation into the Knowledge Maps of Subjects is straightforward.
The actual importation at present of the finished spreadsheet must be done by a SHANTI staff member. In the future, we plan to make a web interface for editors to be able to do this directly.
The structure of subjects records is the same as that of Place Dictionary records, mutatis mutandis. You may want to refer to the Place Dictionary Editor’s Manual so that you are familiar with the structure of knowledge map records. Note that some fields in a Place Dictionary record are not in Subjects (latitude, longitude, characteristics, etc), but every field in a Subjects record is in a Place Dictionary record.
Search the SHANTI Knowledge Maps of Subjects to determine if any of the subjects you want to describe are already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects. For those subjects which are in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects already, you will need to record the ID, since you will need to enter that in the spreadsheet if you are going to add data to that record. In addition, make sure that you see what information is already there for any subject already present in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects, since you do not want to add the same information twice; plus you want to consider how your information, such as a new name, may be related to names already there, which you can specify as relevant in the spreadsheet.
To be explicit, when you request new subject IDs, the Knowledge Maps of Subjects actually creates records for each of the ID. However, it sets them as “blank” so that they don't display in the public interface. The data for these records are then entered in your spreadsheet. When the data in the spreadsheet is imported, the records will be made public as part of the importation process.
3. Now you need a spreadsheet. The first step is to download the current version of the spreadsheet.
4. Next you must decide what types of data you need to input, and then examine the columns in the spreadsheet to figure out which columns to use. You can delete all columns you don't want to use, which will make the spreadsheet more user friendly for your work.
5. Now enter your data into the spreadsheet, carefully following the Editor’s Guidelines in ALL details. Keep in mind you don't have to fill out all data for each spreadsheet – you can just leave fields blank if they are not relevant. The only field that is required to have data is the features.fid column (for an existing record) and, for a record you have created, features.fid and the columns for 1.feature_names.
6. Once you are finished entering data in the spreadsheet, you send the spreadsheet to the SHANTI staff member who will handle the importation process.
Each row corresponds to a record for a single subject. The columns then are types of data that can be specified for each individual subject.
Please note that we are building this spreadsheet and accompanying instructions as people make requests to use specific fields for importing spreadsheets of subjects data. Thus if there are fields of data that are covered by the Knowledge Maps Editor’s Manual or the Place Dictionary Editor’s Manual, but which are not included here, just contact us to see if the fields can be added to the spreadsheet.
features.fid enter the ID for the subject, whether it is already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects, or whether it is a new ID you generated for a new subject. Only the number is necessary; do NOT prefix the number with an “S”.
You can associate one or more projects with a subject. Use these fields:
If the project does not already have a record in the list of projects available when you pull down the menu on the main edit page and select “Projects,” contact us and we will add it.
You can enter any number of names for a given subject record. The spreadsheet has columns for 3 names. If you don’t have that many names, after you are finished entering data into the spreadsheet for all the subjects you are describing, then delete the unused columns. If you have more than 3 names for a single subject, then add columns. The instructions below are based on the spreadsheet having columns for 3 names.
For each name, the one required column you must enter data in is #.feature_names.name (where # is a number from 1 to 3 (or, if you have more than 3 names for a subject, you can add additional sets of columns, such as 4.feature_names.name). The other columns that begin with that number are for entering additional data about that name. These include:
and so forth.
Example: you have entered the subject ID for a subject in the features.fid column. Now you want to add names for that subject.
For Tibetan subject names:
For Chinese subject names:
For a subject that has both a Chinese and a Tibetan Name:
If you are working on a spreadsheet that has more than one root name (that is, a name that is not a child of any other name) and you need to prioritize the names, do the following.
If a Tibetan name is given in a source but in that source it does not give the Wylie or phonetic, in the spreadsheet assign the same source to the Wylie and phonetic as you did for the name in Tibetan font. The same holds for pinyin: assign the same source as for the name in Chinese characters, even if the source does not actually give the pinyin.
NOTE: Tibetan Names If the first character in a cell is ' (single quote, which is the Wylie transcription of the letter a chung འ) you need to insert a second single quote in the Excel doc. Otherwise, Excel does not read it as a character (it reads it as part of a command string) and it will NOT get imported into the subject record and the Wylie will be incorrect. If you are entering data into a spreadsheet, be sure to enter the extra ' for each initial a chung. (This only applies when the a chung is the FIRST letter of a name).
If you are processing a spreadsheet, you can find every instance of this in the spreadsheet this way:
^pའ
^pའུ
^pའི
^pའེ
^pའོ
^pའཻ
^pའཽ
NOTE: Tibetan Names At the end of every name in Tibetan script, you need to enter a shad (།). Thus, enter སེ་ར་དགོན། There are two exceptions: 1) when a name ends in ང enter a tsheg+shad, so it looks like this: ང་། 2) When the name ends in ག, do not enter a tsheg and do not enter a shad. If you already have Tibetan font names in a column and need to add the shad, follow this procedure:
NOTE: in order to use this procedure, ALL the names in the column must be in Tibetan font; you cannot do this if the column has non-Tibetan font names in it.
If the subject you are working on already exists in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects but the names and name relations are done incorrectly and it will be faster to delete them and reimport the data correctly by entering it into the spreadsheet than it would be to go into the Knowledge Maps of Subjects and manually fix everything via the editing interface, then add the column feature_names.delete and enter yes in this field. IF YOU DO THIS you MUST make sure that all the data that is already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects record is in the spreadsheet (including source data, which does not display in the public view); otherwise, the data will be lost.
You want to add a Chinese name that is a transcription of a Tibetan name of a subject that is already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects. For example, http://places.thlib.org/features/4439. This already has the Tibetan name སྒར། in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects but there is no Chinese name, and you want to add the Chinese name 噶尔:
You can also use the name ID from the Knowledge Maps of Subjects:
To add a source or other metadata to a name that is already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects:
You can also add a source to a name already in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects using the name ID:
When a given subject has a name which is an alternate spelling of another name, such as པུ་ཧྲེང་ and པུ་རང་ , first determine which is the primary spelling and which is the alternate spelling. Then enter data for the name which is the alternate spelling following the instructions above (#.languages.code, #.writing_systems.code, etc) with these exceptions:
Alternate spelling type | Code | ||
---|---|---|---|
Acronym | acro.spell | ||
Contraction | contract | ||
Expansion | expform | ||
Mistaken Spelling | mistake.spell | ||
Variant Spelling | var.spell |
A source can be a resource in the Media Management System (MMS) or it can be a person.
A source can be a resource in the Media Management System (MMS), an online resource, or it can be a person.
An example of a source of a name that is a resource in the MMS: 1.feature_names.1.info_source.id
An example of a source of a name that is an online resource not in MMS: 1.feature_names.1.info_source.url
An example of a source of a name that is a person: 1.feature_names.1.info_source.oral.fullname
You can have a source for the following components:
You can add a column for volume number and/or page number for the source. For example:
1.feature_names.1.info_source.volume and 1.feature_names.1.info_source.pages
In 1.feature_names.1.info_source.pages you can enter either a single number or a page range, such as 13-26
If there is more than one page or more than one page range (or a single page and a page range) for an individual source, then insert two columns in the spreadsheet and put this in the header column (this example is a source for 1.feature_name):
1.feature_names.1.info_source.1.pages
1.feature_names.1.info_source.2.pages
You can add multiple sources for a given component; add the second source as xxx.2.info_source.id. For example:
1.feature_names.2.info_source.id
To add a note about a source: xxx.info_source.1.note
If you have many webpages from a single website as sources, then follow this procedure:
People and Other Sources that Are Not in the MMS
Sometimes the source for a piece of information is a person or other source that is not a book, article, or online resource, and therefore does not have a record in the MMS. In such cases, do the following:
A date must ALWAYS go in a separate column.
Tibetan Dates
This allows you to specify the relationship between two subjects. To see the list of relationships and explanations of each, see the FEATURE RELATIONS COMPONENT section of the Place Dictionary Editor's Manual (you can also see the list in the Knowledge Maps of Subjects itself: go to the editor’s interface, pull down the dropdown menu, and select Subject Relation Types.
Note: if you have already imported data into the Knowledge Maps of Subjects and it had the wrong perspectives.code, you can fix this: take the spreadsheet, save it as a new name, delete all the data except the features.fid column, and in row 2 of the second column enter feature_relations.replace; then enter the correct code in that column.
Every subject should have a caption (see editor's manual for details about length limits, etc). There can be captions in multiple languages (for example, in Tibetan, in English, and in Chinese), but there can be only one caption in each language.
Every subject should have a summary (see editor's manual for details about length, etc). There can be summaries in multiple languages (for example, in Tibetan, in English, and in Chinese), but There can be only one summary in each language.
You can attach any number of essays to a subject record, as well as the author of the essay and the essay title, using these fields:
You can associate images from two sources with the record: photos or other visual resources in THL MMS image collections, and photos or other visual resources found on the web.
To associate an illustration found on the web (please read the editor’s manual about copyright issues), create the following columns in the spreadsheet:
To associate an illustration from the THL MMS image collections:
NOTE: in the future this will include images from Shared Shelf and will involve the Drupal Gallery image management module.
Up to four geocode types can be specified for a subject. For each geocode type the required columns are:
You can add a note to the following fields:
You can also add a note to the names section as a whole in addition to an individual name; this note will be applied to all the names (see below).
When you add a note, create three columns with these headers in row two:
XXX.1.note.author.fullname enter the name of the person who wrote the note
XXX.1.note.title enter the title of the note, such as “Note on founding”
XXX.1.note.content enter the text of the note
Adding a note to a given field: insert three columns to the right of the field the note is about, and in row 2 of those columns paste in the name of the field plus “.note.author.fullname”; “.note.title”; and “.note.content”. Then enter the data in the cells as detailed immediately below.
Example: you are adding a note for the subject in row 43 of the spreadsheet, which has an explanation about the relationship “is part of” between this subject and another subject, which is recorded in the field 1.feature_relations.related_feature.fid,.
You can add as many notes to a given field as you want. Example: you want to add two notes to 1.feature_names. To do this, insert two sets of three columns each. In row 2 of the first set of three columns, enter: 1.feature_names.1.note.author.fullname; 1.feature_names.1.note.title; 1.feature_names.1.note.content. In row 2 of the second set of three columns you added, enter 1.feature_names.2.note.author.fullname; 1.feature_names.2.note.title; 1.features_names.2.note.content
Then enter data in each of the cells.
Adding a note to all the names in the Names section: insert three new columns in the spreadsheet. In row 2, enter respectively: feature_names.1.note.author.fullname; feature_names.1.note.title; feature_names.1.note.content
Then enter data in each of the cells.
To add a second note that applies to all names, insert three new columns and in row 2 enter respectively: feature_names.2.note.author.fullname; feature_names.2.note.title; feature_names.2.note.content
Use this format: phonetics (wylie). Phonetics is capitalized if it is a proper noun; Wylie is never capitalized within parentheses. To italicize the Wylie, add the markup: <i>wylie to be italicized</i>. Be sure to use THL Phonetics and THL Extended Wylie. There is documentation on both of these in the Toolbox.