In message <AANLkTikv88IgCKH20tsDA1YIfZHyEjcEfuQ98qeeYhWg at mail.gmail.com>, Perian Sully <perian at emphatic.org> writes > >Likewise, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into discussions with >curators who want to delete the description field (used by registration for >identification purposes) in favor of a more contextual, historical "curated" >description. I have had to go into backups to restore the identifying >description and re-incorporate it. These days, I'm in favor of a curator's >description (or history, or curator's notes) field that the curators can >use, in addition to a physical description field for the registration staff.
Interesting how experience varies on this issue. I'm not sure whether it's a North America/U.K. difference, or simply one between larger museums who can afford to have IT staff to argue with the curators, and the sort of smaller museums I tend to deal with. Anyway, I agree that there is a distinction to be made between an identifying description, and one designed to bring out an object's cultural and/or historical significance. The latter is presumably destined for consumption by the public, and it would clearly be more helpful to include it, for example, in a summary record on your web site. In our Modes data structure we have gone a step further, and provided a repeatable Commentary element, each with a defined Audience. This allows multiple semi-structured descriptions of an object, each targeted at a specific sector of the public. This helps address the perennial problem of how museums can generate interesting web pages directly from the information held within their collections management system. Richard -- Richard Light
