Kaitlyn,

My guess is that everyone has issues with duplicate constituents. Here's what helps us:

Use the full name for the person/institution, with life dates, I known.
Record alternate names or spellings whenever you can.
Standardize the usage of the name fields so everyone is using them the same.
Train users to use the TMS dialogue to first search for an existing constituent record before they create an new one, and to be careful.

-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Kaitlyn Gardy Weathers
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 12:20 PM
To: ListServ tmsusers <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Maintaining Constituents By Department

Hi all,

I hope everyone is safe and well.

We are working on cleaning up our constituent records. As we are a large institution, we have several departments creating constituents. One area in which we are finding a lot of overlap is between our Prints and our Special Collections areas. For example:

We have a print cataloged as J. Smith as the engraver and Special Collections has a book cataloged with John Smith as the author. In actuality, J. Smith and John Smith are the same person. Ideally, we'd like to get rid of the J. Smith constituent record and keep John Smith with J. Smith as an alternate name.

Since our Special Collections department is completely separate from our Collections department (we just happen to use the same database), I am wondering if there's a way for each of us to maintain our constituents so we are not cluttering up the constituent list with duplicate records. That way they can carry on cataloging as they have and we can do our own thing as well.

Any thoughts you'd be willing to share would be most appreciated!

Thanks!
Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn Gardy Weathers
Associate Registrar for Loans and Exhibitions Division of Museums, Preservation and Historic Resources Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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