The Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre (MDCC) is a project mandated by 13 Mi’kmaw Chiefs in Nova Scotia and administered through the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq (see www.mikmaweydebert.com). The Centre is not yet built; the project is located currently at the Millbrook First Nation in Truro,Nova Scotia.

The development of a controlled vocabulary is an essential part of the approved Information and Collections Management Policy Structure of the MDCC. Unfortunately, the industry-wide controlled vocabularies such as Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Union List of Artist Names, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and Cultural Objects Name Authority, do not accommodate First Nation content and contain little Mi’kmaw content.

At this time, we seek to scope out the development of a strategy for the creation of a controlled vocabulary (CV) for the MDCC. The project would be defined as follows, with a timeline and budget to be determined. The CV would be utilized in the implementation of the Centre’s Qi database (see http://www.keepthinking.it/qi), an SAAS content management system.

Project Scope: To determine a strategy for the development of the CV for the MDCC. The strategy will:

• Define an overall approach to the development of a CV;
• Using the NISO 2010 guidelines for the construction of a CV, establish protocols for the development of a CV that are specific to the MDCC database;
• Respond to and accommodate all fields as identified in the data specifications completed for the implementation of the Qi database;
• Allow for the integration of community-level expertise through social tagging and other Mi’kmaw expertise and language;
• Include an implementation plan for the development of the MDCC Controlled Vocabulary, including future oversight or other data quality assessments with the implementation of the strategy.

An interested persons should contact:

Leah Rosenmeier, Research and Interpretation Specialist

The Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq

leah@cmmns.com or (902) 895-6385