You could always use the Constituent "Alternate Names" field, which is a
text field. NMAfA use this for alternate spellings of ethnic groups.
Provided multiple spellings are entered correctly, it is searchable.

Jeffrey Smith
Database Administrator
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
National Museum of African Art
Room 1110, MRC 708
Washington, DC 20013-7012
[log in to unmask]
phone 202-633-4692
fax        202-357-4879

>>> [log in to unmask] 01/22/04 12:14PM >>>
Hi All,

Another point about variant names for constituents that Suzanne Quigley's
reply brings to mind.  It would be really, really useful if TMS had an
option to search on either the preferred form of the constituent name or
on
all the variants as well.  Perhaps it could work the way objects allows
you
to search on all objects or all accessioned objects.



Mary Ellen Guerra
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, DC 20560-0970
Tel: 202-275-1553
Fax: 202-275-1707
[log in to unmask]

>>> [log in to unmask] 01/16/04 05:10PM >>>
We have just been through conversion and we're beginning to use TMS, so I
have been using the TMS Support Site for reference. In the Shared
Resources,
the Getty has provided documentation for how they enter data. They have an
excellent quick guide to alphabetizing the artist names with prefixes. It
is
in the Getty's manual under "Adding Constituent Records"--page 8. It is
useful to see how they have organized it.

Suzanne Stephens
Database Administrator
Birmingham Museum of Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Suzanne Quigley ( [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 4:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Constituent Module: von, van, de, and other particles


Hi Linda,

Use ULAN if possible to determine the preferred spelling of the last name.
Of course there will always be the oddballs - I will never forget that at
a
museum where I worked once upon a time, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was in
the
database as "van der Rohe", when, in fact, the whole last name is "Mies
van
der Rohe".  It doesn't follow logic, thus look to an authority or
establish
it for yourselves for names not found in an authority listing.

Cheers on a cold New York afternoon!

Suzanne

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Pulliam [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 4:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Constituent Module: von, van, de, and other particles


If you have a moment, would you please let me know where your organization
enters this information? Do you use the last name field or the middle name
field?

Staff here are of two minds about where it belongs depending on the life
dates of the artists and their nationalities. Inconsistencies are leading
to
searching problems and the creation of duplicate constituent records.

Linda Pulliam
Manager of Collections Information
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston