Oh yes, yes, yes!!!  I would dearly like for TMS to have that batch-update capability for the attributes.  Ditto for the search-and-replace on fields where the search criterion happens to be blank (null?).

I've had some success in entering repetitive data on some fields of the database by going into the Access version of TMS.  At least in that format, the rows and columns are laid out in such a way to make the keyboarding quicker and more efficient.  There's probably a way of doing this with SQL statements, but I am not confident in my knowledge or handling of such statements.


Christine Droll
Collections Database Administrator
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
Kansas City, MO  64111-1873
t: 816.751.1333
f: 816.751.0499


-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Manuelian
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 10:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: "copy and paste" for media module attributes?

Hello all,

At the Giza Archives Project at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (www.gizapyramids.org) we add ancient Egyptian thesaurus terms to our images in the Media module (Attributes section), so that users can search our images by content. (See http://www.gizapyramids.org, Advanced Search > Advanced Search for Photos).

Currently, each and every attribute must be added manually, a very tedious process, and especially frustrating when two images are nearly identical. We would love to be able to "copy" some or all the attributes assigned to one image, and "paste" them into the attributes for another. 

Would others find such a feature in a future TMS version useful? Alternatively, are there workarounds?

Thanks,

Peter Manuelian
Giza Archives Director
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
www.mfa.org/giza