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I haven’t come up with a scintillating title for this event yet, but I’m trying to organize a roundtable at AAM for discussing this kind of thing. It will be in Houston next year.

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tuck, Emily
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 9:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Culture, Constituent or Both

Jeri,

The Culture field in the Objects Module can be set to be a drop down or a free text field. I can send you a screen shot of ours if you like.

We create a constituent record for the culture/tribe only if there is no known artist, like with Pre-Columbian things.

Emily

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moxley, Jeri
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 5:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Culture, Constituent or Both

What are you using as the culture field? That field isn’t a drop-down in TMS.

And, are you saying that in the Constituents module you use the Culture field to record nationalities? Why not use the nationality field? Or are you saying that you put artist nationality in the culture field of objects, as if the artworks themselves have a nationality?

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tuck, Emily
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Culture, Constituent or Both

At the MFAH we are using both: because it is a drop down, the Culture field is a convenient way of searching. In the Culture field, we are able to collocate like culture groups, e.g.,

Pre-Columbian, Maya
Pre-Columbian, Mezcala
Pre-Columbian, Mixtec
Pre-Columbian, Moche

But we also create constituent records for culture groups when there is no known artist, because this is what displays on gallery labels whenever Culture is displayed on a label. It is a little redundant, but no different from any other element where there is an indexed value and a displayed (label) value.

We also populate the culture field for works with known artists. There are problems, I’ll admit, when an artist’s place of legal citizenship (nationality) differs from the place the artist was most productive (For example, Picasso is Spanish but he was prolific in France and very much influenced by French painters; he gave many pieces French titles.) Some artists have multiple nationalities, and there is no standard approach for how to populate the culture field in these instances. One might decide to input whatever is the preferred nationality in ULAN, or input all of the nationalities. If one puts all into the culture field, should one list them in alpha order so they collocate, or by the nationality which is most associated with the artist (in diminishing order), or by the nationality most closely associated with the object’s provenance? It is very hard. CCO advises using this field when the artist is unknown.

Emily Nedell Tuck

Data Standards Manager
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

P.O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826

1001 Bissonnet Street, Houston, Texas 77005

(713) 353-1523
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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Smith, Jeffrey
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 12:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Culture, Constituent or Both

The Freer-Sackler creates constituent records for cultures – this way descriptive data can be added to each record, maps, archival images – all the tools of the constituents module, plus the Xref fields of prefix and suffix as modifiers. They are usually linked to objects with the role “Artist” when an individual is not known but the work of art is clearly representative of a culture, i.e. Ancient Chinese cultures. Having it as a constituent also means we can list all the alternate names, and in TMS2010 select the preferred name.

We removed the actual “Culture” field because people had been using it too liberally. Constituent records have been a much better solution.

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chad Petrovay
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 12:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Culture, Constituent or Both

We have yet to address cultures as constituents. Since the Culture field is just a text field, it has cause problems, in that some objects in our collection are shared by several cultures. We have this field set to display as a distinct list in queries, which was to help promote standardization on the demonyms entered. But we end up with “Igbo”, “Yoruba, Igbo”, and “Yoruba” all as separate entries.

I’m liking the idea of using the constituents to help control these, but in some ways, I also wish that Culture field was both a controlled assistant and label field, the way that Medium, Dimensions, or ObjectName currently work.

Blog: www.petrovay.com/tmsblog

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Burke, Ashley
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 4:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Culture, Constituent or Both

Hello TMS Users-

I have a question for you all regarding the preferred placement of culture in TMS. Although there is a field for culture, I notice quite a lot of people will also insert the culture into the constituent field. For example, an Italian work that is unknown would have Italian in the culture field and then under constituent (object related) would be Unknown, Italian. What is the best option, culture only or both? One of my thoughts is that it might actually be better to have it in both places for exportation purposes. I would love to hear what other people are doing and the reasoning as to why you would choose one over the other.

Thanks!

Ashley

Ashley Burke

Associate Registrar

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

5401 Bay Shore Rd.

Sarasota, FL 34243

941-359-5700 ext. 1504

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