At the Harvard Art Museum we have the following Constituents: Unidentified Artist Unknown Artist Anonymous Ferrara 1560 Anonymous Poitou 1699 etc. The first two are for the many cases where we don't know who the artist/maker was. We offer the two versions because some curators prefer one and some prefer the other. Our reports understand both. Object Culture has to be entered for every record - and in the Constituent record if possible. The many "Anonymous" were created by the Prints department, and indicate specific artists whose hand is recognizable, but whose name we do not know. Gillian McMullen Collections Information Specialist Harvard Art Museum At 06:25 PM 4/20/2009, you wrote: >Dear TMS list-serv, > >I'm hoping we can pick up on this old topic again to help me make a decision >on how which field(s) to use for our decorative arts/sculpture "unknown" >constituents. We wouldn't normally display "unknown" for dec arts-but >rather "Costal New England, probably Salem, Massachusetts, or Portsmouth, >New Hampshire" for example. Does anyone else list a place instead of >an "unknown" constituent like this? > >The problem is-that most of them are more than 48 charaters >(prefix/suffix/culture) and most of them have qualifiers >like "possibly", "probably", "or", etc.-so they don't work in the >geography fields >either. I'm also afraid it will get too "out of sight/out of mind" >in text entries or >a udf. > >Do any of you have constituents that refer to a place-or has anyone come up >with a good solution to listings such as the above? > >Many thanks for any advice!! > >Stephanie Hansen >Milwaukee Art Museum