Taxonomies

Through the Miranda platform prototype project, we worked to adapt the Folger's current taxonomies to best describe our collections for our users. We came up with a which we employed in Miranda, and which we will continue to refine and adjust our taxonomies as the project moves forward.

Below, we have included definitions for our genre and format taxonomy terms.

Genre Taxonomy

• Art - Visual (artistic) materials, including architectural drawings, historical art, landscapes, art related to performances or other events, portraits, and prints and printmaking materials
• Commentary - Treatises or series of comments that explain or annotate another work.
• Communications - Items intended to convey awareness, knowledge, or information to others. Including but not limited to: cards, telegrams, letters.
• Derivative works - Works that are based on one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.
• Humor - Comical works intended to provoke laughter and provide amusement
• Literary and performing arts - Works of drama, dance, music, prose, poetry, cinema, television, etc...

• News - Letters, reports, serials, newsbooks, corantos, or other written communications that communicate news. May be published at stated, frequent, or regular intervals and contain news, articles, editorials, features, advertisements, and/or other items of current interest. This category also includes news clippings: illustrations, pages, articles, or columns of text removed from books, newspapers, journals, or other printed sources and kept for their informational content.
• Official Documents - Records, in law, having the legally recognized and judicially enforceable quality of establishing some fact (from AAT, "official documents"). May be related to financial, legal, government or personal official documents. May include deeds, licenses, legal notices, or official documents of a personal nature
• Performance materials - Documents or materials used in or related to a performance. May be used by performers, or ephemera that results from a performance, intended for audiences. Examples include playbills, prompt books.
• Promotional materials - Printed matter or objects devised to advertise or promote products, causes, or other concerns, especially those items given away to prospective consumers, clients, or contributors.
• Realia - Physical objects (not books or audio-visual materials) that were produced for use, decoration, or entertainment.
• Reference - Works intended primarily for consultation rather than for continuous reading.

Format Taxonomy:These relate to the Original Format of an item, not to the format of its digital surrogate/facsimile

• Text - a manuscript or printed document, including books and letters.
• Sound - Refers to sound recordings, stored electronically, in any media. May include items such as podcasts or audiobook recordings, or recordings of lectures or performances
• Image - Refers to images, in any medium but usually referring to paintings, drawings, prints, photography, or digital works.
• 3D object - Items Having, or appearing to have, the three dimensions of length, width, and height. May include ceramics, human hair, statues, a bust of Shakespeare carved in salt
• Dataset - a set of data or information that can be interpreted and reinterpreted in quantitative analysis of a subject
• Interactive resource - Use to describe two-way systems involving feedback from a viewer or user, to obtain data or commands and to give immediate results or updated information.
• Video - Refers to manifestations of motion pictures, stored electronically, in any media.