Hi Aleesha –

 

This is something that I’ve been wrestling with as well.  The latest thing that I’ve tried I think is pretty much along the lines of what you are doing.

I’m using the Loan Number that TMS generates, and just adding another subpoint for the object.

So if I have a loan record that is L.2012-17, the object(s) then becomes L.2012.17.1, L.2012.17.2, etc.

I haven’t bothered to try to differentiate the loan/objects with the prefix (even IL vs. OL), mostly because I can’t determine if it will actually be useful.  If I want to pull all the incoming loans for a particular exhibition, I can do this through search parameters, and I don’t want to confuse users.

 

For your other question – I would think it depends on number of staff you have. It’s just me, so even though I would love to have individual records that I could track in locations, etc., I shouldn’t spend the time on it, so I would probably just attach the list.  You would at least have that to reference on the fly. And depends on the number of objects.

We just had an exhibition that had about 35ish loans from private individuals, and I did take the time to create all those individual loans and loan objects, because I really did want to make sure that we knew what was going on with each piece. For a lot of items from a single institution, probably wouldn’t take the time, unless I could do a Copy Range from one initial object record.

This is still a work in progress for me though, and interested to hear what others say.

 

Diane.

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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Aleesha Ast
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2012 11:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Numbering loan objects

 

Hello all, 

 

I know I posted a similar question two years ago, so forgive my redundancy, but I cannot come to a clear decision on how best to number incoming loan objects. How would you recommend numbering your incoming loans (objects)? I prefer to have some sort of differentiation between incoming loans that are specifically for an exhibition we're organizing, and works that we're borrowing to place in our permanent galleries. I've used exhibition-specific prefixes, which is nice because it makes searching very simple, but I'm afraid that will leave us with just too many prefixes in the database. Here are some of the options I've thought of:

 

- Use IL.20XX.X.X for ALL objects we borrow. The year is based on when they will physically be at the museum, next number is Loan Agreement number, and then object associated with that loan. 

 

- Use the above just for works borrowed for the permanent collection, and EL.20XX.X.X for works coming in for an exhibition we're organizing. 

 

This is going to be the start of getting other staff members used to using TMS this way, so they do not have an opinion yet.

 

One other semi-related question: Do you enter object records for packaged traveling exhibitions? We were thinking of just scanning in the checklist and attaching it to the exhibition record, which has its obvious limitations. 

 

Thank you for any advice!

 

Best,

 

Aleesha Nissen Ast

Assistant Registrar

Norton Museum of Art

West Palm Beach, FL 

 

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