Over the holidays, I tallied and analyzed the 5,000+ unique geographic locations entered in our TMS system over the years. I applied the various TGN designations to the extent possible  – e.g., nation, province, inhabited place, historical region, former nation/empire/state, etc. I’ve organized these locations in an Excel spreadsheet in logical groupings. Although we do not have the time or budget to create our own thesaurus at the moment, the spreadsheet could readily serve as the basis of a future thesaurus.

 

My challenge now is to slot the locations per their TGN designations into the available fields in TMS. Although I plan to maintain the TMS Political and Physical tabs, I do need to “condense” and “blend” the various TGN designations to fit the number of available fields in TMS, yet still maintain a logical dropdown of options for the TMS fields. Before I finalize my scheme, I would be interested in knowing how some of you have relabeled or repurposed the TMS data dictionary fields.

 

I would also be interested in the various geography options you use (e.g., place made, place depicted), and how you express uncertainty regarding locations (e.g., Paris (probably), probable place made, etc.)

 

I’d be glad to share my current draft of a scheme with those working on a similar approach to geography.

 

Thanks,

 

Merrianne Timko

Data Standards Manager

 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

PO Box 6826  Houston, Texas  77265-6826

713.353.1523  Office