Jon,

NPG has confronted each one of your issues. We enter objects with PA/NPG numbers when they are "Pending Acquisitions." If they are accessioned, they get NPG numbers, and if they are rejected, they go into the department of the Catalog of American Portraits and get CAP numbers. Either way, the PA number goes into Altenate Numbers. If accessioned, the Object Status becomes "Accessioned object," and if rejected, it becomes "Rejected." Returned loans (Both long term and exhibition loans) also go into the CAP department, and the former loans status is reflected in the Object Status field, which becomes "Returned loan." We have begun entering former credt lines as text entries. Our biggest problem seems to be (like yours) when something has more than one Object Status, like "Accessioned object" and "Returned loan." We try to clarifiy using text fields such as Notes, Curatorial Remarks and Provenance, and the Location History is also very helpful. It is definitely difficult to make hard-and-fast rules as to how to handle these. 

For objects that no longer exist (similar to the temporary object case you mentioned,) we have a constituent record called "Destroyed" that is the object's Current Owner. But it seems more logical to record it in Object Status. We may begin recording it there as well--we entered it as a constituent only because every object we enter is supposed to have a Current Owner (because of the CAP.)

As for Exhibition Object Statuses, we do use them, not only for objects that are "Dropped" from an exhibition, but as of recently, also for the status of exhibition prep work like conservation, photography, matting, framing, etc. These statuses were added so that reports could be generated for the people involved in the prep work, and so far, it is working well. We also have some marketing and publicity-related statuses like "Pitch book image" and "Press packet image."

Back to the recycling objects issue, I think you are right about training being important. Because it is difficult to be perfectly clear and consistent, users have to know where to look for things. We try to keep things from falling through the cracks with queries, but those doing the querying also have to be pretty crafty.

Sue

Susan Foster Garton
Data Administrator
Center for Electronic Research and Outreach Services
National Portrait Gallery
Tel:  (202) 275-1842
Fax:  (202) 275-1907
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>>> [log in to unmask] 09/29/04 11:12AM >>>

Hello everyone!

Has anyone encountered problems 're-using' Object records? The sort of
thing I'm thinking of is related to 'alternate' numbers. For example,
where an object was a long loan in, with an 'L' pre-fixed Object record
number, was returned to it's lender and then borrowed again, re-using
the Object record, but with a new 'X' pre-fixed number assigned. Our
users are concerned that it's not immediately apparent that a short-term
loan was once a long-loan and they're also not keen on over-writing
credit lines where this is the case. On the latter I've suggested that
we could store previous credit lines as a text-entry and for the former,
create a status flag indicating that an Object has an alternate number -
or more explicitly that an Object has changed it's status at some point
- for example 'previously long-loan'?. Maybe it's a training issue? One
thing that has occurred is that it would be useful if the Object Number
quick search feature searched all object numbers for an Object. It would
also be useful if 'alternate numbers' could be included in use defined
forms.

Also, we're not sure how to proceed cataloguing 'temporary' objects e.g.
a wall painting created for a specific exhibition and then painted over
so that, in effect, they no longer exist. Create an object status; a
status flag; record via a location? Something else? How have you tackled
these sorts of objects?

A final query... does anybody else use the Object status on the
Exhibition record to record whether an Object is
agreed/declined/provisional for a given Exhibition? Any
problems/thoughts? We have written reports summarising Exhibition
records that include/exclude Objects based on the value of the Object
status and that also provide details of the Object status - useful where
an object is provisionally agreed (this can't be done with the yes/no
included/excluded windows on the exhibition record). But users still
tend to want the list of Objects visible on the Objects tab to be the
actual Objects in the exhibition and to simply delete Objects not in the
exhibition - which loses the information about them having been
considered, but subsequently rejected/declined etc.. More training?! :-)

Thanks
Jon


Tate
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG

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