Hi Jeremy,
The issue of contemporary geography versus historical geography was/is extremely problematic for our collection, and one of the first topics I dealt with when I started in this position. Our solution was to reassign/rename a number of the fields that are in the Geography Assistant, after in-depth consultation with our various curatorial departments. I’m including a screenshot below.
Because we couldn’t change the order of the fields, just their names, etc., this new layout is a little loopy; for example, Nation more properly belongs in the first column in the ‘Political’ section. But the new fields (like Historical Empire, Historical Country / Region, and Historical City) have proven extremely useful.
Our current policy is to include both current and historical geography, if that is at all possible. Ideally what is entered in the historical geography fields will correspond to what the area in question was called at the time of the creation of the object. So something that was made in Ghent in 1640 would have ‘Belgium’ in the Country field, etc. but would also have ‘Flanders’ entered in Historical Country / Region. I hope this makes sense.
I’m happy to talk about this at further length if anyone is interested; Jeremy is quite right that these decisions can be fraught with unexpected difficulty, and we’ve had to think carefully about how to do this. I will say, though, that the online TGN has a number of historical regions listed as possibilities; see here<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fvocab.getty.edu%2Fpage%2Ftgn%2F7024412&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265821061&sdata=1nlY4X%2Bw0JktRtlJpI%2F%2BloKY7tHKWeEtR4tkjfsOg44%3D&reserved=0> for the Ottoman Empire, for example. Unfortunately our version of TMS doesn’t have this update just yet. That said, there is still the issue of contested geography, etc., and our solutions so far have been to try and make our decisions as transparent as possible. We are still discussing what to do about gender, etc. – but perhaps that is a discussion for another time.
[cid:image006.png@01D4F109.C3AAD720]
Sarah
Sarah J Biggs | Collections Cataloguer
Saint Louis Art Museum
1 Fine Arts Drive
St Louis, Missouri
63110
314.655.5374
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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Munro, Jeremy T.
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2019 8:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Geography section of Objects Module
Hey all,
I’m interested in the usage of shorthand contemporary geography versus historical geography:
For example, I recently entered an object that was acquired in the Congo in 1932 so I entered acquired in Belgian Congo as DRC didn’t exist at the time and the Congo Free State period was over. It feels odd to say use contemporary geography to refer to something that predates it – but I know we do this all the time.
Also a controlled vocabulary list also has to make many decisions which illustrate a politics and ideology. For example, decisions have to be made about with contested geography. A different example of this is Google Maps vs Open Street Map and how they address contested geography https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openstreetmap.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265831066&sdata=gLR5jwT0%2BXGfk2nOHw%2BD3tKnH3NEMhnO%2BQcmGwE%2BBPk%3D&reserved=0<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openstreetmap.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265841071&sdata=oY7CFr8NFD7iQUaT04yVRRXvKAq5c1dMx%2F0MiGKD%2FqI%3D&reserved=0>
I haven’t looked at TGN in depth, but I’m sure they make some calls like that or avoid making calls all together which is itself a call. Getty AAT’s definition of gender isn’t the best https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fvocab.getty.edu%2Fpage%2Faat%2F300411835&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265841071&sdata=pA2w2oKkpTGIhVdCEpJIWYTZM6l8qr5L7YkwWapMfaM%3D&reserved=0<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fvocab.getty.edu%2Fpage%2Faat%2F300411835&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265841071&sdata=pA2w2oKkpTGIhVdCEpJIWYTZM6l8qr5L7YkwWapMfaM%3D&reserved=0> and ULAN uses the heading “Gender” with the terms “Male” and “Female” which is correct as Gender is socially and Male and Female are biological terms.
I’m actually thinking of pitching a panel for next year’s CI on the subject of dealing with the difficult issues in collections management software, especially as the decisions we make help reinforce different types of ideology whether we will it or not.
Best,
Jeremy Munro
Database Administrator
National Museum of African Art
Smithsonian Institution
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202.633.4784
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Dieter Van Hassel
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2019 2:48 AM
To: ListServ tmsusers <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Geography section of Objects Module
Hi all,
That’s one of the reasons we switched completely to the TGN and don’t use the Geography section anymore. Not only spelling variations, but also changing names, local names, … are too much of a hassle to deal with (eg Leopoldstad / Léopoldvile / Kinshasa and 100 variations with or without accents).
If you want to automate your clean up a little bit, you could export he data from the database and run OpenRefine (https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fopenrefine.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265841071&sdata=C57ufzUcQ%2F%2BKo9xbsbEF6TrGrjwVnABUNFjpbx0GEbw%3D&reserved=0<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fopenrefine.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ctmsusers%40si-listserv.si.edu%7C56414500c2b242b9baa508d6bf4ca620%7C989b5e2a14e44efe93b78cdd5fc5d11c%7C1%7C0%7C636906733265841071&sdata=C57ufzUcQ%2F%2BKo9xbsbEF6TrGrjwVnABUNFjpbx0GEbw%3D&reserved=0>) on it.
Good luck!
Dieter
Dieter Van Hassel
Archives & Collection management
Royal Museum for Central Africa
Leuvensesteenweg 13
3080 Tervuren
Belgium
0032 2 769 52 78
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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah J. Biggs
Sent: donderdag 11 april 2019 19:28
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Geography section of Objects Module
Hi Diane,
Unfortunately I am way too familiar with this kind of thing – although I actually discovered five ways to spell Mississippi in our system. Also, apparently Arkansas is a country in Europe.
Sadly, I don’t know of an easy way to fix this short of searching for the incorrect spellings and then doing a batch-change, but perhaps others might. In our case, part of my project was to look at all the records very carefully, so I had to combine these batch changes with looking at each record individually. A terrifying prospect, I know.
Sarah
Sarah J Biggs | Collections Cataloguer
Saint Louis Art Museum
1 Fine Arts Drive
St Louis, Missouri
63110
314.655.5374
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From: The Museum System (TMS) Users <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Diane Karlson
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2019 10:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Geography section of Objects Module
Happy Friday Eve-
Recently, I discovered in the geography section of the Object Module is not an authority field but a fill in the blank type.
Did you know there are three ways to spell Mississippi if you looked at our database?
Is there a way to clean up this field using a package or a report?
Thanks-
Diane
Diane Karlson
Museum Registrar
William J. Clinton Presidential Library
1200 President Clinton Avenue
Little Rock, AR 72201
501.244.2842
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