I think when there is uncertainty about people's death date or when the person is still alive CCO recommends using 100 year span, and an end date of 9999 for companies and organizations. The thought here is that the activity of an institution can span many decades even centuries, unlike people of course, so even if people's life dates are estimated the span makes sense.
EmmanuelleHmm, I like that 9999 solution to separate the living from the undocumented dead. I may adopt that, and keep the 100 year rule for the clearly departed.
On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Milby, Jessica <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
To unsubscribe, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following commands in the body of the email:To unsubscribe, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following commands in the body of the email:Just to weigh in with an alternative for living artists anyway…we enter the end search date 9999, which works for searches and sorting, and (bonus) then all of the living artists are searchable by that end date.
We don’t allow constituent data changes by anyone other than our collections information staff (generally). I’m not sure I’d choose this method, if I were relying on another type of user to make sure that Display Bio doesn’t end up with “1939-9999” by default instead of “born 1939” though.
But I like this +100 years solution too--something to think about!
--Jessica
Jessica Milby
Collections Information Project ManagerPhiladelphia Museum of Art
Information and Interpretive Technology
215-684-7283
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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eddy Almonte
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 12:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Artist Begin and End search dates
Thanks everyone for all the input! This is definitely helpful as we reconfigure our standardization methods for TMS.
Eddy
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Lowe
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 11:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Artist Begin and End search dates
We also give 100 years for persons living or death unknown. For artists or entities for which we have only active dates, we give those in decade increments: a photo studio I know existed in 1859 would be "active 1850s", Begin Date 1850, End Date 1859. For a studio active from 1859-1862: "active 1850s-1860s", Begin 1850, End 1869. I then use the Addresses to refine that info. I've commandeered Display Name 2 for a display date (1859-1862), and record the studio address there, with the search dates. I also record birth and death dates & locations here.
On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Delmas-Glass, Emmanuelle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Eddy,
At the YCBA we follow the guidelines from CCO: http://cco.vrafoundation.org/downloads/PartThree_A1-PersonalCorporateName.pdf
That is we estimate active constituents’ lives to be 100 years. An artist born in 1933 will have a Begin Date of 1933 and an End Date of 2033. I maintain and correct the constituents authority records as needed.
The goal is to always be able to query on indexed life dates.
I hope this helps.
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle Delmas-Glass
Collections Data Manager
Collections Information and Access
Yale Center for British Art
http://britishart.yale.edu/collections/search
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Williams, Scott
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 8:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Artist Begin and End search dates
Hi Eddy —
Generally speaking, we have a value of 0 as the End Date for living artists. Where this causes us trouble is when you do not have a death date for artists known to be dead. In the date label you can clarify this with something like ‘active 1789-1803’ or ‘ca. 1450’ but we would shy away from putting 1803 or 1450 in the End Date field. Over time by including non-death dates in this field we will no longer be able to make assumptions about copyright based on the value of End Date.
Of course active dates could be entered in the ‘Historical dates’ table but that still leaves the question of what type of value is entered into End Date for artists with unknown death dates.
Cheers,
Scott
From: Eddy Almonte <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: "The Museum System (TMS) Users" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 5:50 PM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Artist Begin and End search dates
Hey everyone,
I’m wondering how everyone uses artist’s birth and death dates in the Constituents module. In our TMS, we use the Begin and End Search Date fields. If an artist is still active and alive, we just fill the Begin Search Date with the year they were born and TMS automatically fills the End Search Date with that same year. If we know the time of death, then we fill the End Search Date field with that year. For example, if an artist was born in 1979 and is still alive, both the Begin and End Search Date fields will have 1979 filled in.
This hasn’t been a problem until I’ve recently tried to query all active artists in our collection who are still alive. This wouldn’t be an issue if the End Search Date field were blank or ‘0’, for example. Should that field be blank since the beginning? Would doing an advanced search of Objects-related constituents with End Search date equal to ‘0’ would have solved my query problem (if all End Search Dates were zero for alive artists)? I would love to hear how other institutions are using these fields.
Thanks in advance!!
Eddy
Eddy Almonte
Assistant Registrar
Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
2 East 78th Street
NYC 10075
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