{
  "title": "Ways into the collection — MODAVIS Navigator",
  "text": "MODAVIS (2026). Ways into the collection — MODAVIS Navigator. Research notebooks, September 2026 · research guides edition. https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r4/navigator/exploration/",
  "bibtex": "@misc{modavis_navigator_exploration_2026_09_r4,\n  author = {{MODAVIS}},\n  title = {Ways into the collection — MODAVIS Navigator},\n  year = {2026},\n  month = {09},\n  version = {2026-09-r4},\n  url = {https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r4/navigator/exploration/},\n  note = {Content SHA-256: 5c913c3bfaaf692af46987a22d178302fab9c05456f989ff6fb87b8941318546}\n}",
  "url": "https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r4/navigator/exploration/",
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  "date": "2026-09-26",
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      "title": "MODAVIS Navigator",
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      "slug": "exploration",
      "title": "Ways into the collection",
      "intro": "Move between an individual instrument and broader relationships in the corpus.",
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        {
          "type": "table",
          "headers": [
            "Research interest",
            "Route into the Navigator"
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              "An instrument’s history",
              "Read attributed events and compare specification accounts."
            ],
            [
              "Builders and workshops",
              "Follow supported actor relationships and inspect their evidence."
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            [
              "A stop name or technical term",
              "Explore terminology in its original source context."
            ],
            [
              "A regional question",
              "Start with places, retaining coordinate qualifications."
            ],
            [
              "A reproducible selection",
              "Record the dataset version, query and complete selection."
            ]
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "heading",
          "text": "Terminology in context",
          "id": "terminology"
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "Different sources can use the same word differently, or different words for related concepts. The vocabulary hub connects source terminology and controlled references while keeping their roles distinguishable."
        },
        {
          "type": "heading",
          "text": "Three small investigations",
          "id": "investigations"
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "The following are suggested research exercises, not claims of findings in the corpus. Their purpose is to show how the same interface can support different units of analysis."
        },
        {
          "type": "table",
          "headers": [
            "Exercise",
            "Useful comparison",
            "Question that remains open"
          ],
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            [
              "Follow a workshop",
              "Compare supported actor roles across a selected set of instruments.",
              "Do matching names establish the same person or company?"
            ],
            [
              "Trace a specification",
              "Compare attributed accounts of one instrument.",
              "Are apparent differences dated changes, source conventions or unresolved conflict?"
            ],
            [
              "Follow a stop name",
              "Inspect original spellings and their surrounding specification context.",
              "Does a shared label imply comparable construction or sound?"
            ]
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "heading",
          "text": "Make exclusions visible",
          "id": "exclusions"
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "A selection can look more consistent after uncertain records are removed. That can be appropriate for a bounded analysis, but the exclusion rule belongs in the method. Keep a separate count of records excluded because dates, roles or locations are unresolved. Otherwise the resulting map or chronology can imply a completeness the evidence does not support."
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "Source collections may also differ in focus. A catalogue of a particular builder, region or instrument type is not sampled in the same way as a broad inventory. When comparing groups, inspect source coverage before attributing a difference to the instruments themselves. A concentration of records can reflect documentation activity as well as historical activity."
        },
        {
          "type": "heading",
          "text": "Return from a term to its evidence",
          "id": "term-evidence"
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "Use a controlled vocabulary to relate terms, then return to the original wording before drawing a substantive conclusion. A mapping can make records discoverable together while leaving the interpretation provisional. The OMARO notebook explains how a reference label, an attributed classification and a reviewed statement play different roles."
        },
        {
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          "items": [
            {
              "label": "Open the vocabulary hub",
              "href": "https://navigator.modavis.org/vocab"
            },
            {
              "label": "Read about OMARO",
              "href": "/notebooks/ontologies/omaro/"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "heading",
          "id": "discovery-to-question",
          "text": "Turn an interesting pattern into a research question"
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "A cluster of similar names, dates or map points is a useful starting observation. Before interpreting it, inspect representative records and ask whether the pattern follows instrument history, one source provider or a normalization choice. Keep the original labels and source attributions visible when comparing candidates. A shared workshop name needs identity review; a shared location needs a defined historical scope."
        },
        {
          "type": "p",
          "text": "For a repeatable analysis, translate the exploratory question into an explicit cohort in a fixed dataset release. State what counts as one observation and which records are excluded. Return to the Navigator and source evidence to inspect exceptions rather than removing them solely because they complicate the chart."
        },
        {
          "type": "links",
          "items": [
            {
              "label": "Design a corpus question",
              "href": "/notebooks/dataset/questions/",
              "detail": "Three data stories and a reproducible query plan."
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "Pipe Organ Dataset 1.6.0",
          "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22308263",
          "detail": "The fixed dataset release, methods and checksums."
        },
        {
          "label": "OMARO 0.1.0",
          "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21442777",
          "detail": "Organological reference vocabulary."
        },
        {
          "label": "Pipe Organ Dataset 1.6.0",
          "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22308263",
          "detail": "Public versioned corpus and distributions. Counts and coverage in these notebooks refer to this release."
        },
        {
          "label": "Dominik Ukolov · Musikinstrumente im virtuellen Raum (2026)",
          "detail": "Dissertation submitted to Universität Leipzig, 11 September 2026. §8.3.2, pp. 271–272. Page numbers refer to the printed manuscript pagination. The manuscript is not distributed by this website."
        }
      ]
    },
    "figures": {}
  }
}