Trevor - I have a fairly basic question -- what do museums do with the information they have in the database. I went to the SPECTRUM website ( http://www.mda.org.uk/spectrum.htm ) and it looks like it's basically guidelines for describing the objects held by a museum. (I have no experience in museum work, so I may be missing something.) So I'm guessing that for you, Koha would be a way to store and retrieve information about the objects you've collected. Or do you sometimes loan items as well, and need to track them much as a library tracks book loans? Stephen Hedges Director, Nelsonville Public Library 95 W. Washington St., Nels.,OH 45764 USA
A little while ago I enquired whether there was any interest amongst the Koha community in a museum module. A few people responded in the affirmative. :-) Seems to be a rather small and widely scattered group (me: UK, two: US, one?: NZ).
My first thought is whether this fits into Koha! Whilst there are some proprietary library systems that have museum bolt- ons the latter modules are just that bolt-ons. The functional provision is therefore limited by the underlying library workflow assumptions.
My second thought concerns the design of a museum module. Although the proprietary systems use the same or similar database this might not be the best choice. It is clearly a case of shoe-horning additional requirements. results in various comprises. There are also national standards for museum databases. For example here in the UK it is the Museum Documentation Association's SPECTRUM. Other national museum communities have similar standards. None of these are National Standards from BSI, ANSI, AFNOR, DIN, SiS or even ISO but are "de facto" standards. (I was part of the BSI/ISO cummunity responsible for SGML so am very aware of the different status "standards" have.) SPECTRUM is somewhat unwieldy and its documentaion is targeted at the museum professional not software engineers.
Perhaps those interested would comment upon these thougts. First, should a museum module be added to Koha itself or is it better to use Koha as an example of open source achievements. Second, what database model should be adapted for a museum module/system? Personally, I'm not a fan of relational systems; my primarty experience is with text retrieval systems. Though my intent here is to consider the "schema" for a museum system not to make product choices.
Regards, Trevor
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On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Stephen Hedges <shedges@athenscounty.lib.oh.us> wrote:
... the design of a museum module. Although the proprietary systems use the same or similar database this might not be the best choice. It is clearly a case of shoe-horning additional requirements.
I have a fairly basic question -- what do museums do with the information they have in the database. I went to the SPECTRUM website ( http://www.mda.org.uk/spectrum.htm ) and it looks like it's basically guidelines for describing the objects held by a museum.
There is both workflow and information description in the published SPECTRUM manual --- some 500+pages. A copy is beside me on the desk.
... (I have no experience in museum work, so I may be missing something.)
Neither do I per se but I was regularly a living object :-) at the Science Museum --- as an operator of their amateur radio station. However, my wife is a professional curator.
So I'm guessing that for you, Koha would be a way to store and retrieve information about the objects you've collected.
That's the fundamental requirement. But I question whether a MARC oriented schema is appropriate? Commerical projects have seen me writing data conversion programs reading from MARC tapes to input into text retrieval systems. A comparison of MARC fields/sub-fields with SPECTRUM requirements is probably needed. There is a lot of provenance information associated with objects; I don't remember MARC having any field for that. Also considerable descriptive inforamtion.
... Or do you sometimes loan items as well, and need to track them much as a library tracks book loans?
Yes. Not unknown for items to be loaned to several places in sequence, e.g. Holland, Germany, Japan, and onto USA before being returned home. Thinking creatively I suspect that serials management is a better paradigm than book loans. Regards, Trevor British Sign Language is not inarticulate handwaving; it's a living language. Support the campaign for formal recognition by the British government now! Details at http://www.fdp.org.uk/ -- <>< Re: deemed!
participants (2)
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Stephen Hedges -
Trevor Jenkins