We use TMS to cover all of our departments as well.  We make use of the Attributes field to record hierarchical information such as Stratigraphy & geochronology for geology, scientific nomenclature for biology, time period for archaeology etc.  The flexibility of the thesaurus of TMS is fantastic, but it’s very time consuming to get meaningful standardised data into the system – it can require a lot of typing. 

 

We integrated the 2006 version of Catalogue of Life (a project to create a dataset of all known species names) by taking their data and converting into the correct format for TMS and importing it using scripts.  Not a job for the fainthearted, but it’s given us a very usable and useful species list.  The down side is that taxonomy changes on a regular basis, so the 2006 list is already out of date and there’s no easy way to update the list that we have. 

 

The benefit of using the Attributes field in this way is, first of all, it eliminates free text - useful when spelling Latin & Greek names (or even words such as Medieval).  Secondly, it enforces a standard, preventing people from inputting older terms that are no longer valid.   Thirdly, it allows hierarchies; when we search for all of our Polar Bear specimens, we’re able to search for Ursus maritimus.  Or if we want to find all of our bears, we can search on the bear family, Ursidae.  Similarly, if we want to find all of our Cretaceous material, we can, or if we’re only interested in the Upper Cretaceous, or want to widen it to Mesozoic, that’s possible too.  Very powerful and very useful.

 

Alistair

 

 

 

 

Dear Erin,

 

We use TMS in our museum, wich is a typical example of a museum with mixed collections. Our museum is divided into three area’s of interest: Nature (Biology and Geology), Culture (History and Anthropology) and Technic (Physics). All departments have a vast collection wich is described in TMS. For the historical, ethnological and physics colelction we use the standard screen, for the natural history objects we have made customized screens (with fields for for example the scientific name coming from the OBJContext fields). I have pasted here two screenshots of the different screens.

1.       Cultural objects

 

 

2.       Natural-history objects:

 

 

 

Very much used is the theaurus. For the cultural collections we depend on several thesauri that we build in cooperation with other ethnographic musea in Holland. For the natural-history collection we build thesauri ourselves, based on for example Itis Catalogue of Life, Species 2000, Mindat.org, and others. The thesaurus is a strong tool which enables us to find (and standardize ) the objects in our collection.

 

To see the diversity of our collection you should have a look at http://cc.museon.nl/ . Unfortunately we don’t have an english version yet. But  you can look at for example “Inuit”, you will find our beautiful Inuit collection. At the right hand side there are filters, if you choose to see the natural history objects (in this case only 2), just tick of the other two.

Another example is a search for “Canada”, you will find a very diverse collection. Just have a look and try several things.

 

Hope to have convinced you of the use of TMS for different collections.

 

Kind regards,

 

Corine

 

 

drs. Corine Bliek  |  Collectie en Productie

Contact  070-3381 426  |  [log in to unmask]

Museon  Stadhouderslaan 37  |  2517 HV  Den Haag  |  museon.nl

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning,

 

Within the Ministry of Culture & Tourism, we have a number of different collections using TMS. I am working to ensure that as a Ministry, we stick with our system, despite some users feeling the system is not ideal for their discipline-specific needs. While I recognize some users may be frustrated, I strongly believe the issues are in our implementation and some frustration from when the system was installed (ca. 2002), and do not necessarily reflect the capabilities of TMS today.

 

I am looking for brief comments on how TMS is being used, and how it has been customized locally in the following types of collections. If possible, I would like to share the comments and institution name in an internal Briefing Note to executives on Monday.

 

I am looking for feedback from the following types of collecting institutions:

·         Natural history

·         Archaeology

·         Automotive/Transportation History

·         Mixed collections

 

Please feel free to share with me offline, or forward to an appropriate colleague. I would very, very, very much appreciate any information you might be able to provide!

 

Kind Regards,

 

Erin.

 

Erin McDonald, Manager, Art Collections

Arts Branch, Alberta Culture & Tourism

P: 780-415-0815

C: 780-868-8885  www.affta.ab.ca

 

 

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