RiC-O Occupation
What it is
An Occupation (rico:Occupation) is a role, profession, or position held by
an actor over a time-span. It maps to ISAAR(CPF) section 5.2.6 and is one of the
agent-related entities defined by Records in Contexts (RiC-O).
In Heratio, occupations are stored in the ric_occupation table and linked back
to the actor that holds them. When an agent is serialized as RiC-O JSON-LD the
occupations are emitted as rico:hasOrHadOccupation nodes.
When to add an occupation vs an event
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Use an Occupation when you want to record what role someone held and for how long. Occupations describe an enduring relationship between an actor and a function/position (e.g. "Conservator at the National Archives, 1998–2014").
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Use an Activity / Event when you want to record a specific dated action carried out by an actor. Activities describe discrete things that happened (e.g. "Restored the 1899 Mafeking diary on 12 March 2002").
A useful rule of thumb: if it would appear on a CV as a job title, it's an Occupation. If it would appear on a CV as a project, exhibit, or publication, it's an Activity.
Sample uses
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Conservator at an institution. Title "Senior Conservator", start 1998-04-01, end 2014-11-30, Currently held unchecked. Description: "Lead paper conservator responsible for the colonial-era manuscript collection."
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Curator (ongoing). Title "Curator of Photography", start 2020-01-15, no end date, Currently held checked. Linked to the curator's actor record so the RiC-O graph exposes the current role to federated linked-data harvesters.
Where to find it
Admin → RiC → Occupations (/admin/ric/occupations).