True – we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mahdi, Fatima (VMFA)
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 5:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Department/Search conundrum

Wouldn’t you run into problems when contemporary ceases to be contemporary? There must be a way to use the dates in TMS as the basis for, perhaps, a canned search?

Fatima Mahdi

Collections Information Specialist/TMS

VMFA-web-sig
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
200 N. Boulevard

Richmond, VA 23220-4007
T 804.340.1443

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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cristina Lichauco
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Department/Search conundrum

I’m very interested in these responses because we have been struggling with how to mark Contemporary works in our collection so that they can easily be searched in TMS yet still remain under the appropriate curatorial department. Our Departments are based on geographic areas (i.e. Chinese Art, Japanese Art, West Asian Art, etc.) and it does not make sense to pull contemporary works out of those into a new non-geographic department. Our curators are opposed to using the culture, style, or period fields in this manner for a variety of reasons.

We are considering using a flex-field to mark contemporary works, especially given that those can be added to Query Assistant (we are on TMS 2016). Has anyone tried this method?

Cristina Lichauco

Collections Database Administrator

Asian Art Museum

Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art & Culture

200 Larkin Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

www.asianart.org

T: 415.581.3676

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Search the Online Collection at http://onlinecollection.asianart.org

Another thought was to create a classification for contemporary art, so that a work could for example belong to the Chinese Art Department but be classified as

From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mahdi, Fatima (VMFA)
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 2:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Department/Search conundrum

Alternatively, you could use the Culture field on the Object record to tag works as African, something like “African, Yoruba”.

Fatima Mahdi

Collections Information Specialist/TMS

VMFA-web-sig
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
200 N. Boulevard

Richmond, VA 23220-4007
T 804.340.1443

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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chad Petrovay
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 5:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Department/Search conundrum

Departments are a great way to divide the collection, but their strength is that security is applied by department. Most commonly these values mirror the hierarchical structure of the institution. Who manages Modern & Contemporary art? Is that different from the person who manages African art? If so, which person is responsible for Modern & Contemporary art from Africa?

You may want to consider utilizing the Geography for tracking place of origin, and then configure Query Assistant to allow searching on geography.

On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 5:01 PM, Klauke, Michael <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Greetings, all –

I’m hoping someone may be able to help me with a problem we’re wrestling with.

Our collection is divided up into numerous Departments on TMS, two of those being “African” and “Modern/Contemporary.” We collect and have collected a good number of African objects, such as cloths, headrests…etc. But we also have begun collecting work by contemporary African artists. Up to this point, the contemporary African artists have been included in the “Modern/Contemporary” department. But that means if someone searches for African art in our collection, the search results will not include the contemporary African works.

We thought about creating a separate department of “Modern & Contemporary/African,” but then it seems like we would have to divide up all the Modern artists by geography, and then why not start dividing up all the earlier European art, etc.? At this point, that seems like a can of worms we’d prefer to leave unopened!

If anyone else has encountered a similar situation, I’d appreciate hearing how you dealt with it.

Many thanks, and feel free to respond off-list if you prefer.

Michael

Michael Klauke

Associate Registrar for Collections

North Carolina Museum of Art

4630 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC 27699-4630

Phone: 919.664.6822

Fax: 919.715.1860

Opinions expressed in this message may not represent the policy of my agency. E-mail correspondence to and from this sender is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.

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