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eHRAF
Tutorial: Documents
by Christiane Cunnar,
Human Relations Area Files
(HRAF) at Yale University
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Documents: Overview
Documents are the full-text books, journal
articles, dissertations, or manuscripts located in the table of contents
(TOC) in the Culture File. Each document contains publication information,
a short abstract, place and time coverage, a table of contents (TOC), and
the full-text contents of chapters. Graphics, figures and tables,
bibliographic references, indexes, and appendices may also be included.
The paragraphs in a document are indexed with OCM subject codes. The
document titles and topics cover mostly aspects of cultural and social
life— from basket making to infant toilet training to funeral rites.
Within the documents each full text paragraph is indexed with unique 3 and
4-digit OCM subject codes, indicating the contents of a paragraph.
Documents can be searched for words or OCM subject codes using Text
Search. Documents in eHRAF may also be located in the eHRAF Source
Bibliography search (by author, title, abstract, or culture search).
Publication Information
A document (Figure 9) contains the publication information on the
right-hand side including the author’s name, title, and publisher and an abstract of the document, written by an HRAF analyst. The “go to long view” button links
to additional HRAF information such as the document type, language, field date, evaluation, analyst, coverage place and date, and LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Heading).
Underneath the “Publication Information” on the (right-hand side)
a row of OCMs refer to the "main" OCM subject codes used for the
document (Figure 9). OCM stands for Outline of Cultural Materials,
an extensive subject index system that will be explained in detail in the next
sections. When you click on the OCM subject code, a window with the
subject title and description will appear (not shown in Figure).
Document Table of Contents (TOC)
The left-hand side in the document consists of the actual table of
contents (see Figure 9). Depending on the type of document, you may see chapter titles (if the document is a book), or just headings titled “section” (if there
were no named headings--many of the earlier culture files had abstracted
portions of ethnographies without titles). This document, for example, is
mainly about topics including History (OCM 175), Hunting and Trapping (OCM
224), Diet (OCM 262), and Mythology (OCM 773).
In the eHRAF database in the Culture File scroll up to the File Table of
Contents and click on the document titled The Sun god’s children, written
by James Willard Schultz. You should now see the document's
publication information on the right-hand side and table of contents with
chapter titles on the left-hand side (see Figure 9). Click on the various
"main" OCMs in the right-hand side and read the descriptions for
the OCMs.
| Figure 9. Publication information for
document titled "The Sun
God's Children," written by James Willard Schultz |
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Table of
Contents
Titles
The left-hand side of a document contains
the table of contents with the chapter titles (see
Figure 10). If a document (e.g., a journal article)
doesn't have title headings then the titles are usually
listed as "sections."
The words in the titles can be used for searching. In
Text Search words can be searched to find information in
the chapter titles and subchapter titles of documents.
Unlike a paragraph, a title is not indexed by OCM
subject codes.
Paragraphs
If you click on a title, the chapter contents opens up.
In the right-hand side of Figure 10 you can see an
excerpt of text in a chapter with indexed paragraphs. The full text of a chapter usually contains many paragraphs, indexed with
any number of
OCM subject codes "summarizing" the main topics of a
paragraph. The OCM subject codes (or OCMs for short) are based on the Outline of Cultural
Materials,
an extensive subject classification and retrieval system.
HRAF analysts read every page and carefully index every paragraph with OCM subject codes.
Depending on the contents of the paragraph, a paragraph might
be indexed with only one or two, or a few OCM subject codes. The paragraphs you see
in Figure 10 are about the mythological relationship between animals and humans and so
the paragraphs are indexed with 773 (standing for mythology).
This chapter is also a narrative, told by Chief Crowfoot, and then translated by James Schultz into
written English text and thus is indexed with OCM 902.
When clicking on the OCM subject
code a small box will open, containing the name of the OCM
category and its description (see Figure 10).
In this chapter the OCM subject codes are fairly uniform, pertaining
only to the topic “mythology."
However, as topics change from one to the next paragraph, so will the OCM
subject codes. Therefore, each paragraph of a text is considered its own separate unit and is indexed
as such.
Please notice that the full-text
in chapters also contain information such as the culture
name, field date, publication date, date coverage, and
place coverage. In Figure 10 you can see that in this
chapter, reference for the Blackfoot is made to
"northwestern Plains, Montana, United
States."
In the eHRAF database click on
the title CHAPTER III WHEN MEN AND ANIMALS WERE FRIENDLY on the
left-hand side in the document’s TOC (see Figure 9, above). This
will open up the full-text for that chapter (see Figure 10). Browse through the chapter and examine the
text and corresponding OCM
subject codes. Click on the OCM subject codes to read the descriptions..
| Figure 10. Full-text for the chapter titled
"When Men and Animals were Friendly" in The Sun god's
Children, by James Willard Schultz. The paragraphs are indexed by
OCM Subject Codes. |
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This ends the Documents section and at this point we are ready to start preparing for a search.
Remember from the beginning of the tutorial that our topic theme is "studying mythology of Native Americans in the northwestern Plains of the United
States." In Browse Cultures we have found that the Blackfoot is one
of the cultures representing the northwestern Plains of United
States. We now need to find the OCM Subject Codes that represents
the topic "mythology."
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