Hi Julie -

We have five constituents that are used in similar ways to how others
have responded.  They are:  Anonymous, Unknown, Private Collection (for
ex-collections), Unidentified Dealer (for ex-collections), and Venue
Unknown (in the exhibition module, we use this when we know the city
where a venue was held, but we don't know the place, used generally for
older exhibitions).  For the first four that I listed, if we know the
place from, we add that to suffix so that it reads, "Private Collection,
Switzerland" or something like that.  For the Venue Unknown constituent,
we add geography to venue remarks.

We've found that it's helpful to put instructions for using each of
these in the remarks area of the constituent record.  Then users can see
how to use it when they pull it to a record.  So for example, the
constituent record for Private Collection has in the remarks field, "Use
for ex-collection constituents when collector's name is not known.  Add
appropriate geography to Display Suffix in Objects Module."

Hope this helps -

Ella Rothgangel
Collection Database Administrator
Saint Louis Art Museum
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-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Julie Thies
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TMS - unknown maker

hi
When adding the constituent of 'unknown' to your object records, do you
have
a separate unknown constituent for each individual object record, or one
unknown constituent you link to numerous object records?   Do you have
one
unknown constituent record or thousands?

Thanks
Julie Thies
Manager of Collections Information
The Speed Art Museum