[game_preservation] Cataloging Standards?

[Andrew Armstrong]

Looks like what libraries would (or do?) use. Would be worth seeing if 
anyone on the list who's working on their archive or library of games 
has an existing system and methodology. I'm not for reinventing the 
wheel for something that is so simple, and really needs no discussion if 
someone has something worth using (or an idea worth standardising properly).

Andrew

On 28/12/2009 16:54, Devin Monnens wrote:

> Actually, I know Ritsumeikan has their own catalogue system, but I 

> don't remember how they did it. VGMDB simply adds new catalogue 

> numbers whenever a new album is discovered (for ease of the database). 

> It might be interesting to hear what other libraries are using.

>

> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com 

> <mailto:dmonnens at gmail.com>> wrote:

>

>     A catalogue system was something I had been thinking about myself.

>     These numbers would be something that all libraries would

>     recognize and so they could list their catalogue in an online

>     database that could easily be cross-referenced. Certainly, you

>     could use a citation list with all the information I listed, but

>     it would be easier to reduce it down to a few numbers. These

>     should be pretty easy to recognize too. We could use any of the

>     common abbreviations for system (AT = Atari (or AT2 for Atari2600,

>     AT5 for 5200, AT7 for 7800), GC =Gamecube, W98 = Windows 98, etc).

>     Publishers and developers would have numbers or abbreviations as

>     well (I'd stand for abbreviations though as they are easier to

>     understand). You could probably number games based on year of

>     publication in case a new version was found (that way, you're not

>     adding new entries alphabetically). So you might say:

>

>     System.Number.Version.Developer.Publisher.Year

>

>     AT2.001.v1.US.Ata.Ata.1977

>

>     From this, you could tell that this is an Atari 2600 game published in 1977, version 1 (it's a first print), it's

>     the US

>     region and the developer and publisher are both Atari, Inc. This narrows it down. If you can't guess the sample game, it's Combat :)

>

>     NES.001.v1.JP.NCL.NCL.1985.9

>

>     First see how much of this you can recognize. This might be the

>     entry for the Japanese Super Mario Bros. Note that we can also add

>     another number at the end indicating the month (or even the day too).

>

>     DOS.143.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2

>

>     Ok, here is a PC game. We can tell it runs on DOS and that the

>     version (or rather, patch) number is 1.21. It was published in the

>     US and Bli stands for Blizzard :P A Feb 1995 release date narrows

>     this down to...*drumroll* Warcraft.

>

>     However, we might want to list the patch separately. You could

>     probably list .pa for 'patch' or the medium (fl for 'floppy', CD,

>     etc).

>

>     DOS.142.v1.US.Bli.Bli.1994.fl [Original Floppy]

>     DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2.pa

>     <http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2.pa> [Patch]

>     DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1996.CD

>     <http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1996.CD> [CD version]

>

>     This way, games get listed together based on whenever they are

>     added to the catalogue.

>

>     You can then

>     have extra fields in the extended catalogue entry that indicate any special hardware

>     or software you need to run the game (maybe also if the entry

>     actually runs or has succumbed to bit rot?).

>

>     An online catalogue would make it necessary to indicate if the

>     library has box, manual, game, and inserts lines as

>     well (in case someone was looking for one of those).

>

>     Is this system closer to what you were thinking of? Is this level

>     of complexity too much? (you could probably just have say

>     DOS.142.v1.21.US.1996.CD <http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.1996.CD> and

>     skip developer and publisher altogether). I think maybe this

>     privileges release date, too so that the name of the game is

>     associated with its release dates. You could divide these into

>     genre with say 1.XX as 1 (action), 2 (rpg), and then the second

>     number is the entry number.

>

>     -Devin

>

>     On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Andrew Armstrong

>     <andrew at aarmstrong.org <mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>> wrote:

>

>         With that being the case, standard archive and library systems

>         can easily do "(Game) Name(s)" "Date" "Publisher" "Developer"

>         "System" (or game type) and possibly "Credits", and maybe (a

>         broad) "Genre" or "Category" one, as well as if it supports it

>         a "Cover picture".

>

>         What more do you think a library system catalogues? Looking at

>         the University I'm working at, that's what they do for DVD's,

>         books, etc. etc. I don't think archives would do much more, as

>         a baseline for finding things in their collections. Perhaps

>         someone working on one can tell us. The only odd thing would

>         be the comparison to book's categorisations. Oddly, the

>         University of Nottingham uses an American system, which is odd

>         mainly because it has massive sections for "American History"

>         but, say, UK history gets dumped into tiny categories in

>         "World History" I think, which I found a tad silly, but hey ho!

>

>         If we need to standardise those fields, well, are there any

>         I've missed out? We can put up some suggested fields as to

>         allow people to, for example, provide SQL database copies of

>         what they have with those fields with standard field names so

>         that, perhaps, they can be shared (or just searched) for

>         historian's sakes if that was part of your intent.

>

>         Do you want to write it up somewhat, with more what your

>         intent is?

>

>         Anyway, it's more fun talking about bigger databases, I'm glad

>         it went off topic a bit :)

>

>

>         Andrew

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>

>

>

>

>     -- 

>     Devin Monnens

>     www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>

>     The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>

>

>

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>

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