Types of resource included

The following is a list of categories of resource which the service will target for inclusion. Candidate resources are provided by bodies or individuals listed in Section A. Section B lists some distinct types of resource.

Section A: resources created by bodies or individuals

• higher education and research centres
  examples: web site for an art college; CTI art and design web site
• professional societies or interest groups
  examples: web site of the RIBA; web site of a group of radio enthusiasts
• the commercial sector
  examples: Kodak's web site; Reuters' newswire service
• government agencies
  examples: Crafts Council web site; Department of National Heritage web site
• museum and galleries
  examples: web sites for national and commercial museums and galleries; online galleries
• individuals, e.g. Artists, designers, architects or group practices
  examples: web sites created by or about individuals e.g. Alvar Aalto web site

Section B: resources of a distinct type

• discussion lists
  examples: ceramics-l a ceramics discussion list, photo-l a photography discussion list
• resource lists/guides
  examples: ArtSource
• recruitment/employment resources
  examples: Jobs Unlimited
• electronic journals
  examples: Lumiere, an online fashion magazine; Photon, an online photography magazine
• training materials
  examples: NetSkills
• guides and tours
  examples: a tour of Durham cathedral
• reference and directory resources
  examples: Film formats; IFLA Directory of Art Libraries

This is by no means a definitive list. The nature of the Internet and the broad subject base of the service will mean that some resources that do not easily fit into any of these categories will be appropriate to include in the service. Ultimately the decision to reject or include a resource will be at the discretion of the cataloguer. The important criterion will be: ‘is this resource of value to the ADAM user community and does it meet with the ADAM Selection Guidelines?’. Selection criteria then are necessarily subjective, but some possible objective measures are sketched out below.

Balance & Prioritisation

ADAM recognises the need to provide balanced and adequate coverage of the relevant subject areas. This will be achieved partly by the specific expertise of the cataloguers (both Resource officers and trained volunteers), but resource discovery and cataloguing activities still need to be prioritised both by subject and resource type, and these priorities will need to be regularly revisited in the light of subject coverage and user feedback.

Objective guidance on subject coverage can be derived from the list of resources ordered by Dewey Decimal Classification mark; a low frequency of Dewey classmarks within ADAM's subject scope are indicative of poor coverage of a particular subject, whereas a large number of similar classmarks will indicate that coverage of a particular subject is good.

Priorities to end July 1999

The following subject areas should be considered high priority for resource discovery and cataloguing purposes for the current period:

• Fine artists
• Classical and medieval art
• Non-western art
• Art with relation to issues of gender, race and ethnicity
• Digital and mixed-media art
• Performance art
• All areas of Applied Arts
• Interior Design
• Green design
• Packaging design
• Design for business
• Museum studies and conservation

The following subject areas should be considered low priority for resource discovery and cataloguing purposes for the current period:

• Architecture
• General arts resources

All other subject areas covered by ADAM but not listed here remain at 'normal' priority.

Physical format of ADAM resources

ADAM will collect relevant Internet resources in any format. At the time of writing, ADAM uses ROADS templates as the structure for resource description records. Templates are available for a range of different types of resource. These include:

• services
• documents
• mail archives
• images
• videos

However so far the service has focused on collecting services, images and mailing lists, as these have been the formats of the resources selected for inclusion.

Whole or part?

Where appropriate ADAM will create records for both resources as a whole and for discreet parts of resources. It will be at the discretion of the cataloguer what parts and how many parts of a resource are included.