Contributor(s): Andres Montano, David Germano, Steven Weinberger.
Quick link: current version of the spreadsheet. Only download this if you know what you are doing – otherwise read below first.
The THL Place Dictionary has a sophisticated online editing interface for creating and revising place entries. However, when one is simultaneously working on the description of many places, it is far easier to work in an offline format like a table or spreadsheet. Then you can rapidly work on multiple entries simultaneously without having to open and close modules for each piece of data. In addition, people often have worked on place data without reference to THL, and then want to submit their work without having to cut and paste every bit of information online into the right fields. For these reasons, we have created a module to automatically import place descriptions in a standardized spreadsheet into the Place Dictionary.
This will not simply work with any spreadsheet, but rather ONLY with the THL Place Dictionary 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 THL Standardized Place Spreadsheet; and data entered into alternative spreadsheet formats will need to be imported into the THL Standardized Place Spreadsheet. Once done, however, importation should be straightforward.
The actual importation at present of the finished spreadsheet must be done by a THL staff member. In the future, we plan to make a Web interface for editors to be able to do this directly.
1. Make sure you have read the general THL Place Dictionary Editor’s Manual so that you are familiar with the structure of place entries
Search the THL Place Dictionary to determine which of the places you want to describe are already in the Place Dictionary and which are not. For those places which are in the THL Place Dictionary already, you will need to record the THL feature ID since you will need to cite that in the spreadsheet. In addition, make sure that you see what information is already there for any place already present in the THL Place Dictionary, 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, so you can specify that information as relevant in the spreadsheet.
2. You then need to generate a new "feature ID" for each place you are describing and which is not already in the THL Place Dictionary. These new feature IDs are then recorded in the spreadsheet, and the importation process will use these IDs to import the data in the spreadsheet to the right Place Dictionary record (which is identified by the Place Dictionary ID). The process of generating new feature IDs is as follows:
To be explicit, when you request new feature IDs, the Place Dictionary actually creates entries for each of the IDs. However, it sets them as "blank" so that they don't show up to public users of the Place Dictionary. Those can then be used for your spreadsheet. When it is imported, the flag will be switched to "is blank is false" so that it will show up in the Dictionary online for the public.
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 put 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. This must be filled out, since this is the information used by the importation process to match your data to entries in the database.
6. Once you are finished entering data in the spreadsheet, you send the spreadsheet to the designated THL staff member, who will handle the formal importation process.
Each row corresponds to an entry for a single place. The columns then are types of data that can be specified for each individual place.
Please note that we are building this spreadsheet and accompanying instructions as people request to use specific fields for importing spreadsheets of place data. Thus if there are fields of data that are covered by 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 feature, whether it is already in the Place Dictionary, or whether its a new ID you procured for a place not yet described in the Place Dictionary. Only the number is necessary; do NOT prefix the number with an “F”.
features.old_pid should not be used except by THL staff who prefer to identify the feature by way of the older IDs used by THL before the current system was implemented INSTEAD of the newer FID. Most editors should thus ignore the features.old_pid column. Only enter data in EITHER the features.fid column OR the features.old_pid column; DO NOT ENTER data in both columns.
You can associate one or more projects with a feature. Use these fields:
If the project does not already have an entry 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 place entry. The spreadsheet has columns for 13 names. If you don’t have that many names, after you are finished entering data into the spreadsheet for all the features you are describing, then delete the unused columns. If you have more than 13 names for a single feature, then add columns. The instructions below are based on the spreadsheet having columns for 13 names.
For each name, the one required column you must enter data in is #.feature_names.name (where # is a number from 1 to 13 (however if you have more than 13 names for a feature, you can add additional columns 14.feature_names.name as necessary). 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 feature ID for a place in the features.fid column. Now you want to add names for that place.
Language | Code | Language | Code | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arabic | ara | Burmese | mya | ||
Chinese | zho | Dzongkha | dzo | ||
English | eng | French | fre | ||
German | deu | Hindi | hin | ||
Italian | ita | Japanese | jpn | ||
Korean | kor | Latin | lat | ||
Mongolian | mon | Nepali | nep | ||
Pali | pli | Polish | pol | ||
Prakrit | pra | Russian | rus | ||
Sanskrit | san | Sinhalese | sin | ||
Spanish | spa | Thai | tha | ||
Tibetan | bod | Unknown | unk | ||
Urdu | urd |
Writing System | Code | ||
---|---|---|---|
Cyrillic | cyrl | ||
Devanagari script | deva | ||
Latin script | latin | ||
Simplified Chinese Characters | hans | ||
Tibetan script | tibt | ||
Traditional Chinese Characters | hant |
For Tibetan place names:
For Chinese place names:
For a place 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 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 Place Dictionary 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 feature you are working on already exists in the Place Dictionary 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 Place Dictionary 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 Place Dictionary entry 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 feature that is already in the Place Dictionary. For example, http://places.thlib.org/features/4439. This already has the Tibetan name སྒར། in the Place Dictionary 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 Place Dictionary:
To add a source or other metadata to a name that is already in the Place Dictionary:
You can also add a source to a name already in the Place Dictionary using the name ID:
When a given place or feature 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 |
Note: in the example for Sera Monastery, it has names se ra theg chen gling and se ra dgon; se ra dgon is an alternative spelling of se ra theg chen gling, type=contraction.
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
For online sources, create an MMS record and be sure to include the URL. Then copy the MMS ID and paste it into the spreadsheet just as you would for a book or article.
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
Up to four geocode types can be specified for a place. For each geocode type the required columns are:
Here are the geocode types and their corresponding codes to input into their corresponding columns:
Type | Type Code | ||
---|---|---|---|
Aufschnaiter Lhasa Map ID | auf.id | ||
Bellezza Site ID | bell.id | ||
FIPS 10-4 | fips | ||
Flashmap ID | flashmap.id | ||
GB Code | gb | ||
GB Code - Ryavec | gb.ryavec | ||
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 | iso.alpha.2 | ||
ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 | iso.alpha.3 | ||
ISO 3166-1 numeric | iso.num | ||
Lhasa Atlas ID | la.id | ||
Official United States Postal Service state abbreviations | stusps | ||
Postal Code | post | ||
Royal Government of Bhutan Code | rgb | ||
TBRC Geocode | tbrc | ||
THL Extended GB Code | gb.ext | ||
Tibet Heritage Fund Lhasa Building ID | thf.id | ||
US 2-character 113th congressional district FIPS code | cd113fp | ||
US 2-character state FIPS code | statefp | ||
US 8-character National Standard ANSI code | statens | ||
US AFF Summary Level Code | affgeoid | ||
US Geographic ID | geoid | ||
Zip Code | zip |
This allows you to specify the relationship between two places. 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 Place Dictionary itself: go to the Editor’s interface, pull down the dropdown menu, and select Feature Relation Types).
Note: if you have already imported data into the Place Dictionary 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.
Code | Relationship | ||
---|---|---|---|
same.location | has the same location as | ||
has.entirely.located.within.it | has entirely located within it | ||
is.contained.by | is entirely located in | ||
is.the.partial.location.of | is the partial location of | ||
part.loc | is partially located in | ||
intersects.with | intersects with | ||
is.adjacent.to | is adjacent to | ||
is.near | is near | ||
is.centered.in | is centered in | ||
has.centered.in | has centered in it | ||
has.as.an.instantiation | has as an instantiation | ||
is.an.instantiation.of | is an instantiation of | ||
has.as.a.part | has as a part | ||
is.part.of | is part of | ||
administers | administers | ||
is.administered.by | is administered by | ||
has.as.an.administrative.seat | has as an administrative seat | ||
is.administrative.seat.of | is the administrative seat of | ||
is.administrative.headquarters.of | administrative headquarters of | ||
has.as.an.administrative.headquarters | has as an administrative headquarters | ||
is.mother.of | is mother of | ||
is.child.of | is child of | ||
is.succeeded.by | is succeeded by | ||
succeeds | succeeds | ||
owns | owns | ||
is.owned.by | is owned by | ||
is.affiliated.with | is affiliated with | ||
is.in.conflict.with | is in conflict with | ||
is.related.to | is related to |
Name | Code | ||
---|---|---|---|
Cultural Regions | cult.reg | ||
Site Relationships | site.rel | ||
Political Relationships | pol.rel | ||
Cultural Relationships | cult.rel | ||
Environmental Relationships | envir.rel | ||
Administrative Relationships | admin.rel | ||
Organizational Relationships | org.rel | ||
Religious Relationships | rel.rel | ||
National Administrative Units | pol.admin.hier | ||
Historical Polity Administrative Units | hist.pol.admin.unit | ||
Geographic Relationship | geo.rel | ||
Electoral Relationships | elect.rel |
The Place Dictionary allows any category in THL’s Knowledge Map of Subjects Database to be associated with a place entry in the Place Dictionary. Each subject has a unique ID (a K#). In addition, in the Place Dictionary, you can make a short textual and/or numeric text entry associated with a particular subject (for example, if your Kmap ID is for the subject "Destruction" you could enter the means of destruction in that column). Finally, every subject associated with a place can also have a source, note, and date associated with it.
There are two cases for entering subject data. The first is associating a specific subject, such as the population of monks in a monastery, with a particular place dictionary feature when there is additional data to enter, such as the number of monks. The second case is associating a specific knowledge map subject with a place dictionary feature when there is no additional data related to this subject (other than date and/or source for a particular subject); an example is associating a religious sect affiliation with a monastery.
Case 1: for each subject characteristic you want to associate with a feature:
NOTE: if you have two different dates of for example the construction of a building (K2746) and they are from two different sources:
NOTE: if you have two different values for the same characteristic, for example one source says a building has two stories and one says it has three stories (K6930=stories):
Case 2: You want to associate Geluk from the Religious Sects Knowledge Map with some entries and Nyingma with other entries.
For the type of Subject data in case 1, if you want to add text rather than a numeric value, you can do that. For example, if you are adding data that chos rgyal ’phags pa was the founder of a monastery, then:
For some characteristics, you want the parent category name to display in the online record rather than the name of the Knowledge Map itself. Example:
You are adding the KMap characteristic Bönpo Kangyur holdings (http://subjects.kmaps.virginia.edu/features/5549). The name of the Subject that this is part of is "Monastery Characteristics." However, we are going to have data for the number of Bönpo Kangyurs in the monastery's holdings (1), so we want the label in the online end-user display to be "Bönpo Kangyur holdings: 1" and NOT "Monastery Characteristics: 1". Therefore do the following:
KMap Notes: a note about a KMap characteristic has the header #.K###.1.note or #.kmap.note. A note is not attached to, for example, #.K###.1.time_units.note.
kmaps.delete if there is already data in the Place Dictionary entry for knowledge map characteristics and you are changing that data, enter "yes" in this field. If you are both changing existing knowledge map characteristics data and adding new knowledge map characteristics data, then enter "yes" in this field. If there is already data for knowledge map characteristics in the Place Dictionary entry and you are adding new data but you are not changing the existing data, then do NOT enter anything in this field. If you are newly creating the Place Dictionary entry or if the existing Place Dictionary entry does not have any knowledge map characteristics data, then do NOT enter anything in this field.
The knowledge map category "Exists" is particularly important. See the instructions in the editor's manual, and enter data for this in the spreadsheet using the format for case 1 detailed above.
This addresses territories that are claimed by more than one nation.
This gives the physical location for a place.
If you have latitude and longitude data that is in the form of a range, for example lat 30.57 - 33.16, long. 79.01 - 81.11, then insert columns with the following headers and enter the data in them:
1.shapes.1.lat | 1.shapes.2.lat | 1.shapes.1.lng | 1.shapes.2.lng |
---|---|---|---|
30.57 | 33.16 | 79.01 | 81.11 |
If you have 2 (or more) different points from a single source, use these column headers:
1.shapes.1.lat, 1.shapes.2.lat
If you have data from two or more sources, use these column headers:
1.shapes.1.lat, 2.shapes.1.lat
If you have altitude readings such as 4600+, add a column with the header 1.shapes.altitude.estimate and then enter 4600+ in that column; don't enter anything in 1.shapes.altitude.
If you have maximum and minimum altitude readings for a feature, enter the data in the following columns:
If average altitude data has already been imported into a Place Dictionary entry and you want to add maximum and minimum altitude for that entry, make a new spreadsheet with the following columns:
Every feature should have a caption (see editor's manual for details). 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 feature should have a summary (see editor's manual for details). 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 place entry, 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.
You can add a note to the following fields:
You can also add a note to the names section as a whole (see below); this note will be applied to all the names.
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 date of 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 feature and another feature, 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 2 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 respectively: 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.feature_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 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: <em>wylie to be italicized</em>. Be sure to use THL Phonetics and THL Extended Wylie. There is documentation on both of these in the Toolbox.