Polymyth CommonsSeminar Schools ↗

Method · Governance · Expansion

How the commons stays trustworthy.

The current release is a structured, source-grounded index designed to grow into a typed relationship model. Reviewed present-tense claims carry a source and date. Historical evidence remains visible when a project moves, merges, or changes stewardship.

The boundary

Polymythlib is a pointer system. The current release stores stable record IDs, names, source-grounded summaries, classifications, source citations, reviewed status evidence, and versioned collection membership. External libraries and projects continue to hold their own collections.

Polymyth holds

Links, metadata, evidence, dates, aliases, collection rules, and editorial decisions.

Sources hold

Books, datasets, images, articles, tools, records, and other collection content.

The commons adds

Contributions, corrections, shared methods, governance, and a living research community.

The closest book precedent is EconPort, described as a searchable central gateway with annotated off-site links and harvestable metadata. See printed pages 340–345.

Three layers remain distinct.

Book fact

Source-grounded summary, chapter, printed page, relation, role, and printed URL from the supplied source.

Current verification

Reviewed destination, operator, service state, evidence links, review date, and confidence.

Polymyth curation

Directory scope, collection membership, editorial note, proposal history, and publication decision.

The record model

A public page reads like a directory entry. The current record separates project identity, book citations, normalized types, reviewed status, and evidence endpoints. The target model adds typed claims and lifecycle events without overwriting history.

Target node classes

  • Project · library, archive, repository, portal, journal, collaboratory, software commons, or public-facing initiative
  • Institution · university, library, laboratory, nonprofit, agency, publisher, museum, company, or foundation
  • Network · federation, coalition, membership association, professional society, or information community
  • Protocol · metadata rule, harvesting protocol, API, identifier, exchange standard, or interface
  • Policy · license, access policy, declaration, self-archiving rule, or governance rule
  • Community, scope, resource type, preservation endpoint, and lifecycle event

Independent facets

The current data keeps book type, book relation, directory scope, status, and discovery generation in separate fields. Subject, geography, audience, access, license, governance, and preservation are planned as independently versioned fields as evidence is added.

Terminology

Book wording remains available in the cited source. This release publishes citations and source-grounded summaries. Smaller Polymyth vocabularies organize cross-project browsing through versioned mappings.

Status is several questions.

Polymyth records initiative state, service state, website state, organizational continuity, preservation state, and the verification basis, date, and confidence separately. “Current review pending” identifies the evidence workflow while preserving the project’s historical record.

How the directory grows

  1. Round 0 · Book backboneExtract every printed link and named project; preserve spelling, page, chapter, role, and 2007 portrayal.
  2. Round 1 · Verify each seedResolve the book URL and record the official current page, moves, aliases, successors, archives, status evidence, and date.
  3. Round 2 · Official neighborhoodInspect About, history, governance, host, partners, members, funders, projects, APIs, standards, preservation, and related-project pages.
  4. Round 3 · Strong-edge expansionQueue projects explicitly named by official sources as partners, members, successors, predecessors, spinoffs, federation members, or related commons.
  5. Round 4 · Parents and networksTraverse official directories, member lists, implementer registries, preservation nodes, and constituent programs.
  6. Round 5 · Preserve lineageKeep project, parent, software platform, and deployed instance distinct; preserve former names, URLs, mergers, and transfers.
  7. Round 6 · RefreshRecheck URLs, redirects, status evidence, and unresolved records.

Breadth control

Add a public-facing record when a direct source establishes a qualifying relationship and the entity itself offers a commons, library, directory, repository, archive, portal, journal, collaboratory, preservation network, learning commons, civic information commons, or shared knowledge infrastructure. Generic news and individual content items remain evidence endpoints.

Relationships first, graph later.

Record pages currently show related items generated from a shared normalized book type. These lists support exploration and do not yet claim a sourced relationship between projects. Typed relationships can launch when their source and verification date are recorded.

The target vocabulary contains 50 terms across institutional, technical, preservation, lineage, scope, access, and governance families. Each published edge will require a source URL and verification date.

Browse the relationship vocabulary

Descriptive evidence signals

Public badges can report a reviewed destination, known access terms, license information, API or metadata service, contribution route, governance information, preservation endpoint, and last review date. Record pages also show which evidence fields Polymyth has completed.

These signals describe field-specific features and evidence coverage. Curated collections state their selection rules so differently purposed projects remain legible on their own terms.

Governance

Polymyth Commons is curator-led, community-sourced, and editor-verified. Anyone can suggest a project, correction, broken link, or relationship. Project operators can submit official descriptions and evidence. Editors review proposals before publication, and the Polymyth editor retains final publication authority. The intended public record includes proposal and revision history.

Open contribution routes

Maintenance and release

  • Automated link checks can run weekly and queue redirects, failures, and certificate problems for review.
  • Human verification rolls continuously and records its date, evidence basis, and confidence.
  • CSV and JSON releases are versioned with a manifest and changelog. An API can follow when real reuse demands it.
  • Former, successor, current, and archived URLs coexist instead of overwriting one another.
Download JSONOpen data manifestChangelog

Sources and external logic

The conceptual backbone comes from Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, eds., Understanding Knowledge as a Commons. Relevant architecture passages include printed pages 44–66, 145–163, 311–327, and 340–347.