Submit new material

You are invited to contribute information for inclusion on these pages concerning projects and publications in the provenance field or to offer a file of provenance data for inclusion in the CERL Thesaurus.

Please send a short descriptive paragraph, with a URL for web-based data, and relevant bibliographical information for books and articles.

Soon, you will be able to record digital images of provenance evidence, accompanied by information about the item in which you found the evidence, and any further information you have about the provenance evidence, in the CERL Provenance Digital Archive (hosted by Arkyves). If you have not yet been able to identify the former owner, you may indicate this on the record. Other scholars in the field are invited to examine these records and to offer suggestions for identification.

The CERL Thesaurus itself does not usually contain any provenance information. Instead, it links out to other systems that do, such as local OPACs, other bibliographic databases or even specialised databases dedicated to provenance information only.

What needs to be submitted is a compilation of entities (i.e. personal and corporate body names) which have related provenance information available in a certain system/database
This can take the form of

• authority records used in recording provenance information (most desirable form)
• a list of names (ideally established headings) used in recording provenance information

Another precondition to make the linking from the CERL Thesaurus work is that the system/database can be precisely queried, i.e. a result screen can be linked to from the CERL Thesaurus which shows e.g. all the relevant copies for which a provenance relation to the respective entity has been recorded. This can happen via

• HTTP GET i.e. per URL
  e.g.
  
  example 1
  http://cisne.sim.ucm.es/search*spi/?searchtype=a&searcharg=Fuente,%20Vicente%20de%20la,%201817-1889,%20ant.%20pos
  the heading “Fuente, Vicente de la, 1817-1889” is submitted as search term, the addition of the relator term “ant. pos” ensures the provenance limitation
  
  example 2
  http://aleph.unibas.ch/F?func=find-c&ccl_term=ABE%3DPetri+Adam
  the name form “Petri Adam” is submitted for search in the specific provenance index
  
  example 3
  http://opac.sub.uni-goettingen.de/DB=1/LNG=DU/REL?PPN=369460332&RELTYPE=TT
  all bibliographic records linked to (provenance use) authority record no. 369460332 will be retrieved

• HTTP POST

In bibliographic databases it is important that the limitation to provenance entries can be warranted, i.e. that only records are retrieved which have the respective entity recorded as provenance related and not for example as author. This can for example be ensured, (as seen in the examples above)

• if a specific provenance index is addressed (example 2 and most desirable form), or
• specific provenance authority records are used (example 3) or if
• a relator term can be added with Boolean AND-Search logic (example 1)

Should a target system/database for the moment not be suitable for remote retrieval as described above, there might be still (much less elegant) ways of making provenance information retrievable through the CERL Thesaurus. Principally, CERL is eager to unite as much provenance information as possible in order to make the most of the European libraries' effort in provenance cataloguing - which only becomes apparent when seen in context i.e. as a whole.

It might be a solution - at least temporary -

• to accept to link queries to bibliographic databases which do not warrant the limitation on provenance entries (e.g. include author entries as well)
• to create intermediate result list within the CERL Thesaurus interface when only list of shelfmarks or record IDs from bibliographic databases are available
• to display the citation of a printed provenance index when it is not yet available in electronic form