Dear TMS Users,
We are in the process of writing cataloging standards for our new TMS system
and would be very appreciative if you could help answer the questions below.

How do you use your Department field?

(Collection Type)
From what has been seen, there are some museums who use their Department
field to list the types of collections the museum owns (whether that museum
has those actual departments or not). So in that case, if "Ancient American"
is one of your Departments, do you also put "Ancient American" in the
Culture field? And "Mayan" in the Period field?

Departments
Culture
Period

OR

(Object Type)
If your Department field is set up based on Type of Object, ie: Sculpture,
Painting, Architecture, etc. and you want to conduct a search for all Mayan
sculptures--what fields would you use to find them?


There are no right or wrong answers, we just need more examples from other
museums to be able to show our curatorial staff.

Many thanks in advance,
Lee Nisbet
Study Storage Supervisor
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
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(919) 684-8262