THANKS JESSICA!
This is really helpful, and I love the summary/bulleted points.
(I don't think using the AAT is the best choice for us. We have so many unique values, and the AAT has so much more than we need.... it may be an overkill. However, perhaps we can use the Materials facet as a guide to what we do with our 5000 terms. Oh well, something to think about next year....)
Thanks again,
David
-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Milby, Jessica
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2018 12:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Medium field Thesaurus Xrefs
I had to hit up the archive to find out what I'd asked cause my memory is slipping apparently.
Original query:
1-How do you feel about the extra data entry?
2-Did you create your own thesaurus or use AAT?
3-Did you separate materials from techniques from support?
4-Where in the AAT did you point to?
5-Do you use the “create label” function? --With the connectors, how do you use punctuation with them? (I’m finding the extra spaces inserted before commas frustrating.)
We have since mostly completed this project, so I can say that in my experience...
1-The data entry is clunky and time consuming. We did most of it via SQL inserts.
2-We used the AAT.
3-We created ColThesXrefTypes for Materials, Techniques, and Supports.
4-We pointed to the Materials Facet. A lot of terms were confusingly only in the Objects Facet under visual works as sort of object name type instead of materials. We might have been too caught up in semantics though.
5-We do not use the "create label" function--our tags are more for search support than for creating a label. We use preferred terms in the tags where a curator might use another version in the Medium field. We had hoped that having the linked synonyms would take care of all possible search inputs for our online users. We haven't added this data to our online collection yet.
Monitoring changes in the Medium field where a user forgets to update the associated tag is a pain, and we're using alerts, but we haven't deployed it across all users yet. My team within our IT department did all the backlog of data entry (363,000 terms for 230,000 objects!!!), so the curatorial staff are just tasked with doing this for new acquisitions and changes made to the Medium with new research.
We found the AAT was missing a lot of terms used for materials in our photography collection. There were also a lot of areas of ambiguity where my team couldn’t confidently batch assign a term without curatorial review, and a lot of that review hasn't happened yet.
I don't think I had any responses to my initial inquiry to the listserv, so I designed the project in the way I thought best for us. I'm happy to answer questions about what we did. Our Data Standards Administrator, Renee Bomgardner, did a webinar for GS on the subject a couple of years ago: https://community.gallerysystems.com/s/article/TMS-Lions-Tigers-Bears-oh-my-Materials-Technique-and-Support-Tagging.
Hope that helps!
--Jessica
Jessica Milby
Assistant Director for Collection Information
t 215-684-7283
f 215-235-0035
Philadelphia Museum of Art
PO Box 7646, Philadelphia, PA 19101-7646 www.philamuseum.org
-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of DeBono Schafer, David
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2018 10:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Medium field Thesaurus Xrefs
Hah!
Just this morning I was thinking about searching the Listserv archive to see what has been said about this issue....
I believe I missed Jessica's thread, and I would love to hear about any conclusions or recommendations.
(We use the Materials Xrefs, but it just one awful flat list of ~5000 materials that came over from EmbARk where it was a wild-west-style free text field.)
Cheers,
David
David DeBono Schafer, Senior Collections Manager Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02155
[log in to unmask] 617-496-5748
-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Hamutal Gabayev
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2018 4:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Medium field Thesaurus Xrefs
Hi Jessica
I know it's been a while since you posted this question, but I'm now at the stage that you where in. What were your conclusions please? How do you manage the Medium field now and how do you use the data for public views?
Thanks!
Hamutal
Hamutal Gabayev
Registrar
Bible Lands museum Jerusalem
Phone: 972-2-5955329
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