At the Musical Instrument Museum, we use the Department field to organize object records our data by the responsible curator/gallery (North America (USA/Canada); Latin America; East Asia; Southeast Asia; Central Asia; South Asia; Middle East (including North Africa); Africa; Europe; Oceania). The division of the departments reflects the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.
There are additional departments that are used for managing exhibit records (Orientation; Mechanical; Artist Gallery).
We have also added an additional department of Native American, so that objects from indigenous peoples could readily be identified - however, the content is still managed by the curator for North America (USA/Canada), and the exhibit records are included in the North America (USA/Canada) department.
The Culture field is used for more specifically identifying the people who fabricated the instrument (Yoruba, Y'upik, Hutsul); not every record has 'Culture' populated and there is a trend for this information to be recorded for "non-western' geographies. Period is virtually unused.
I hope this has been helpful.
Chad Petrovay | Collections Database Administrator
MIM-Musical Instrument Museum | 4725 E. Mayo Boulevard | Phoenix, AZ 85050
480.478.6000 main | 480.478.6058 direct | 480.471.8690 fax | www.themim.org
Blog: www.petrovay.com/tmsblog
-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lee Nisbet \eoj
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Cataloging question--Department field
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
[log in to unmask]
(919) 684-8262
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