Greetings Ariana, 

Here at the Postal Museum I've created a Data Entry Instructions &
Standards word document that guides users how to enter data into our
system. Our data pulls to an external collections website
www.arago.si.edu which makes standardization key. The Instructions &
Standards document provides clear instructions how to enter data
(including creating new records, chain-of-command, and why we made the
decisions about entering data in a certain way), step-by-step
screenshots of actual records, examples & do's & don'ts. 

Also helpful is populating the field-specific help text in TMS with data
entry guidance for each field. You can do this in the configuration side
of TMS and simply type these in. Your staff can then click in any field
and hit Shift + F1 to see your instructions.  

You may also want to use the Form Designer in TMS to create a data entry
screen that is specific to your cataloging needs. 

Developing data entry standards requires staff buy-in, & I've found it
helpful to have a series of roundtable discussions with all TMS users at
the museum (including curatorial, collections staff, website & media
specialists). However, I want to stress that at the end of the day, it
is the responsibility of the DBA to ensure the integrity of the database
by making the final determination of how the data is to be entered &
enforcing these standards. Without standards, the value of the
information in TMS (and how we go about finding it) is worthless.

I hope this answers your question. I'll gladly email you a copy of our
standards document. 
Happy Holidays, 
Kate

Kate Diggle
Collections Database Administrator
National Postal Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Tel: (202) 633-5512
[log in to unmask]
www.postalmuseum.si.edu
www.arago.si.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Ariana French
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: In-house TMS knowledge base?

Hello all,

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has developed an in-house TMS
knowledge base or similar resource. For example, a collection of
documents,
email or discussion board threads, web site pages, etc. which contain
guidelines for TMS record entry that may be unique to your institution.
We
are finding duplicate efforts and similar questions being asked across
different departments, so I'm interested to know if anyone has had
success
with developing an internal system for communicating TMS-related issues.

My question is this: What has worked for you, & what hasn't? Do you use
an
intranet, a file share for documents, an offline (i.e. paper) resource,
a
combination of these, or another solution? Does a particular application
or
software meet your needs for this purpose?

Many thanks,

Ariana

--
Ariana French
Database Administrator
Yale University Art Gallery
341 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06520
phone: (203) 432-7914