Hi,

When our objects go out on loan we give it a Site of Loan and enter the
institution name in the Remarks field.  Before we moved to TMS we use to
also add the geographic information to our locations.  We dropped that
information when we moved to TMS because you can pull that data from the
Loans or Shipping tables.  The reason we still list the Institution is
because if there are multiple loans for a single object and it is not
easily apparent which loan move goes with which loan record.  The best
you can do is compare dates, which is harder, then comparing names.

I have set up the Query Assistant and Advanced Query in Loans,
Exhibitions and Shipping to use the table related Constituent City,
State and Country fields.  I then trained the Registration staff on how
use and query these fields for the data they need.

This system seems to work very well for us.

Thanks.
Carole.

>>> [log in to unmask] 03/21/03 06:10AM >>>
Hi all -

I too have been toying around with the idea of tracking our off-site
exhibition places (Continent, Country, State, City..possibly name of
borrowing institution) in the location authority ...but wonder if this
isn't
being redundant, and complicating the Location Authority - since the
off-site locations for a given object will be tracked in the Loans
module?

I've attached a visual of our Location Authority, so you can see what
I'm
talking about as far as setting up Countries, Cities, etc. as
locations.
Again, I am a very new user to the system. In fact, we are just about
to
sign off on our conversion, and are still not even actively using the
system
yet. But, I'm curious what people think about this idea - tracking the
off-site locations for venues in the Location authority, as well as in
the
Loans module (like in the Attributes section)....would one be better
than
the other?

What I would like is for people to have the flexibility to create a
query to
answer a question like - "Which objects from our collection traveled
to
Europe in 2001?"  or "Which objects have been on exhibition somewhere
in the
United States in the past 5 years". (we loan so much stuff, in such
large
quantities, all over the world...that it will become necessary at some
point, to be able to answer these questions, for a variety of
reasons...)

In order to harvest data to answer these questions - would the Loans
module
be the best place to query this data? Or, the Locations module?  Is it
redundant in any way to have the information in both places?  What
advantage
would it be to have the information in one over the other?

Thanks for any/all answers...
Allison



..................................................................
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the warhol:
Allison A. Smith
Collection Manager / Database Administrator
117 Sandusky Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
T   412.237.8345
F   412.237.8340
E   [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
W  www.warhol.org <http://www.warhol.org>
W  www.warholstore.com <http://www.warholstore.com>

The Andy Warhol Museum
One of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mary Ellen Guerra [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 4:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Objects out on loan


Hi Dave,

At the Smithsonian American Art Museum the Location Authority has
values
for Tour and Loan.  The specific places are entered in Remarks.  It is
useful for the Registrar to be able to see where it is on the location
card
and the remarks field being free text doesn't require a new
sub-location for
every conceivable place an object might go to.

Mary Ellen Guerra
Collection Database Administrator
Smithsonian American Art Museum


>>> [log in to unmask] 03/20/03 02:32PM >>>
Hi all,

I was curious as to how everyone is handling locations for objects
which
are currently out on loan.  We have 7 objects out on loan to LACMA
right
now
and when an object goes out we update its current location to "On
Loan"
and
that is a site in the loc hierarchy.  Most of our users can't see
location
because its a security controlled field available only to registrars,
curators and conservation.  So we have a Status Flag that indicates
that
the
object is out.  Is anyone doing anything differently?  I was
considering
adding sub sites to the "On Loan" site that indicate the actual
location
of
the object in the location authority.

For example
On Loan
     The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
     The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA
and so on.

Dave