Analysis Objective: Object Analysis for the Envision Publication Database

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This note describes object analysis originally developed for Envision, an object-oriented database of computer science literature. The analysis was developed during March-June 1992, and is reproduced essentially unchanged from the internal documentation of that time (other than a shift from Coad-Yourdon OOA to UML).

This is not the ultimate analysis of these concepts. The analysis is focused on “structure” much more than “behavior,” and so is less object-oriented than it might appear at first glance. Nonetheless, I think it does highlight some important issues and ideas.

Librarians have been thinking longer (and more deeply) about these issues, and this modeling could be improved by embedding the structures embodied in the Z39.2 MARC standard.

Packages

The packages used to classify the domain objects:

Packages: Publication, Person, Event, Collection, Misc

Misc. Packages

Date, Keyword, Name, Page, Address, Profile, Address

Collection Package

Bibliography, Page, Name, and Date in their sets

Event Package

Publication and Date are both parts of Event

Person Package

Person and LegalPerson

Publication Package

Publication package

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this paper are my own responsibility, but I wish to acknowledge the feedback of the entire Envision team, particularly of Dr. Edward Fox and Dennis Brueni. I was partially supported by the Envision NSF grant during that time.