Hi Robyn: We face similar challenges when a ornamental container is planted with more than one species of plant, each with their own unique accession numbers, and no characteristics in common except their inclusion in the design by a landscape architect.
All of our accessions have a location (garden name) and a sublocation (an individual planting bed within a garden). To handle this issue we created a number of temporary sublocations identified as containers with a geograhic reference (front steps for instance). I am assuming your database also contains one or more fields for describing the physical location of your collection. Could the approach we use for plants work for you? Boyce Tankersley Director of Living Plant Documentation Chicago Botanic Garden 1000 Lake Cook Road Glencoe, IL 60022 tel: 847-835-6841 fax: 847-835-1635 email: btankers at chicagobotanic.org -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Sanford, Robyn Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:23 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: [MCN-L] Records for displaying unrelated objects together I have a question for all of you data people out there. We're going to have a costume show of our permanent collection where mannequins will be dressed in complete outfits. This means that there will be objects that each have their own individual record in our database on a single mannequin. These objects may have had no previous relationship to one another in the past (they do not share similar accession numbers, etc, etc...). My dilemma is that we use the database to create our labels and of course we want to retain the label text in the database for perpetuity. I am not sure how to do this short of creating a single parent record in the database that links to them all, which I do not want to do. Aside from the expected questions of what number am I supposed to give a record like that, I also don't think it is a good policy to implement as users would be inclined to update the label text on the record for the labels and not the objects themselves. Or if they were so good to update everything, well then they are just duplicating data across 2 or more records which just seems unnecessary. Has anyone had to deal with this before or have any ideas? We use Mimsy by the way. Robyn Sanford Associate Registrar, Database Manager and Special Projects LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART 5905 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90036 T 323 857 4769 F 323 857 6213 E rsanford at lacma.org <mailto:rsanford at lacma.org> _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
