If you are creating a structured language guide for the various formats, have you considered using the "Object Attributes" field?
Jeffrey Smith at the Freer-Sackler introduced me to the wonders of the Object Attribute Field, and he has a rather nifty plug-in to enable mass attribution of records. The classification field is a double edged sword, it only works if all of your objects are easily classifiable. The Walters uses an archaic numbering system for allocating accession numbers - is it a 54 for bronze or a 27 for sculpture? Since our accession numbering system provides a basic classification, we have not used the classification field. (In fact no one has view access for that field).
If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line.
Chad M Petrovay, MA (Dunelm)
Collections Database Administrator
The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
P: 410.547.9000 x266
F: 410.837.4846
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www.thewalters.org
Exhibitions:
The Repeating Image in Renaissance & Baroque Art on view 8 September 8 – 17 February 2008
Recurrence on view 19 September 2007 – 20 January 2008
Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces on view 7 October 2007 – 1 January 2008
-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users on behalf of Diggle, Kate
Sent: Mon 12/10/2007 3:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Classifying Objects in TMS
Season's Greetings,
Stamps comprise the largest portion of the National Postal Museum's
collection. When initially cataloging stamps, TMS was used internally
among collections staff and there was no public interface (ie: our
collections website, www.arago.si.edu <http://www.arago.si.edu/> ). As a
result, NONE of our object names for stamps contain the word 'stamp' in
the Object Name field of TMS. Instead, stamps are listed by
denomination, subject, & format (ie: 5c Woodrow Wilson block of four).
In a nutshell, we weren't stating the obvious, ie: that the object was a
stamp,
because it was assumed that the staff was familiar with the collection
and knew what objects were stamps.
Fast forward to present day: Our objects data is pulled from TMS for
public display on the web. There is no way to find ONLY all the postage
stamps in our collection, both online and in the database. I have been
working with web programmers to indicate in the .xml code to attach the
word [postage stamp] to every object that is indeed a postage stamp.
However, I need to distinguish, at nearly item level, what objects are
truly 'postage stamps' ie: stamps issued as evidence of prepayment of
postage, and which items are not, such as 'revenue stamps' ie: stamps
used for tax on goods such as cigarettes, 'special issue stamps' used to
raise funds for specific purposes such as land conservation (duck
stamps) and Civil War wounded (Sanitary Fair stamps), and on.
Furthermore, envelopes with stamps on them also need to be classified as
'postage stamps' as the stamp is often the reason the object was
collected in the first place.
The former DBA also struggled with this issue and created about 32
different categories in the Departments field of TMS, some of which are
object-type based, some of which are subject-based, and some of which
indicate deaccessions & incoming loans.
In light of this gigantic project, I'd welcome any guidance on the best
way to do this. We currently have about 180,000 object records. I'm
contemplating linking object records to the AAT in TMS, populating the
TMS Thesaurus with Library of Congress subject headings & linking to
that, creating new classifications using the Classifications field, or
using the Classifications field in concert with the Departments field to
indicate different object types (ie: an envelope with a stamp). I've
also contemplated using SQL to populate the Object Name field with the
words 'postage stamp,' 'revenue stamp' etc where appropriate.
Many Thanks in advance,
Kate
Kate Diggle
Collections Database Administrator
National Postal Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Tel: (202) 633-5512
www.postalmuseum.si.edu
www.arago.si.edu
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