Can I pester you all again?  Our library staff loves TMS, which is great
since they are often the first interaction with the public where
interested people go to ask if we have something in the collection that
isn't on view.  They have their own detailed way of cataloguing, and
their own database for the book collection, and do not want to start
using the Bibliography module of TMS for that.  They do, however, want
to put data about books in their collection into the Bibliography or
Published References text fields in TMS.

 

They would like their reference staff to easily be able to locate books
that refer to objects in the collection, while doing a search for the
objects in TMS.

 

Naturally, I'm excited that they're excited.  I have asked them to come
up with their own procedures for how they would enter data and retrieve
it, and they came up with some questions for me that I couldn't answer,
so I need your help:

 

1.       What is the difference between "Bibliography" and "Published
Reference"?  (I've got my own ideas, but I'm curious how others have
made the distinction)

2.       How many characters does each field hold?

3.       Can we change the tag labels on these fields if we wanted to
describe them differently or repurpose them?  (I thought this was a
simple questions, but I couldn't find either in dbconfig, so I couldn't
answer it)

4.       Can they put a URL into the text field that might take a user
over to a place on the intranet or even to a spot in their system's
database?

 

Any life experiences that you have about this type of thing would be
greatly appreciated.  

 

Thanks as always,

 

David

 

David Aylsworth

Collections Registrar

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

telephone:  713-639-7824

fax:  713-639-7780