Dear Renee

Apologies for coming to this late; it is, however, a question that's' been vexing me for some time, as we potentially have location records for our collection going back to the mid-nineteenth century - and our rooms have changed their names / numbers (never mind physical spaces being reconfigured) several times since then. I find TMS's inability to log location name changes over time frustrating, and this has led to multiple location entries for the same physical space having been set up and deactivated as they have changed name and function over the years; to my mind, this is Just Wrong.

Different departments also refer to the same space in  different ways, although we do have a system of space codes used on our building plans. But one space can be covered by multiple codes, depending upon how the space was originally configured; and of course we have the problem of spaces which ceased to exist before the codes were first allocated.

So I've implemented a kludge: I use the Flex Fields in the location authority to store all relevant space codes for the particular location. I put the code in the Value field, and the date at which that space name (which is what our location records actually represent) was first allocated to the code in the Date field. We're using this to join TMS data to our Artifax room booking system, so that we can pull back whether or not a room is closed for our website (implementation pending, but the joins are currently live in our middleware).

I discussed this all a while back with Nicola Astles at the New-York Historical Society and Cathryn Godwin at Princeton. I sent a fairly detailed proposal for how to extend the current data structure to accommodate historical location names and changing space configurations to Jon Thristan in September 2017; no doubt, if he's reading this, he will let us all know what stage that proposal has reached ...

Best wishes

Rupert


Rupert Shepherd, PhD FSA
Collection Information Manager
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Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 5921

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bomgardner, Renee
Sent: 23 April 2019 15:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Location Numbering

Good Morning TMS Users,

We are beginning to thinking about how location areas are numbered due to a construction project.  Are blueprint numbers incorporated as part of the location name?  How are previous blueprint numbers tracked?  Has anyone encountered renumbering entire floors?  All ideas are appreciated.

Thanks!
Renee

Renee Bomgardner
Database Standards Administrator

t 215-684-7288
f 215-235-0035

Philadelphia Museum of Art
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