Community Design Workshop Notes - Cataloging

Group A

Consider:

• What is institutional definition of cataloging?
• What is the commitment to past practices? (numbering, histories,
  descriptions, etc.)
• What will be cataloged? How?
  • Begin with data conversion?
  • Project-based?
  • New?
  • Whole/part?
• Discovery of standards
• Knowledge base in support of cataloging efforts

Group B

Cataloging is: Information needed to identify relationships

• Identify
• Find
• Select
• Obtain

"Balancing local practice with global access."

• Record provenance, name, identity, numbers,
• Level of detail depends on museum practices
• Blurred lines between collections management system and digital asset management systems.
• Record hierarchical relationships
• Determine what to catalog and why
• Know/determine policies, rules, standards for cataloging
• Identify rights/permissions
• Associated items (i.e., digital surrogates, documents from donors, bibliographic references, etc.)
• Tracking attributions and other histories of identification

Group C

1. Get something in
2. Assume have an accession number if use these
3. Give object a catalog number.
4. For collections taken in (boxes of stuff).
   1. Material/arrangement. How did things come (together). Object
      packages. May be authoritative, formal or ad hoc.
   2. Chronological or other schema for relations. What order in the package?
   3. May distinguish particular items of distinction, e.g., because of association to historical event, etc.
5. Associate metadata to object.
   1. Attributes
   2. Documentation associated with accessioning
   3. Documentation of historical significance, etc.
   4. Spiritual or cultural significance
   5. Dollar value
   6. Security
   7. Access
   8. Note that cataloging in the sense of adding new info, is an ongoing process, and opens up scope considerably

Group D

Initial description: Curator works with the donor, so when the object comes in, curator has information about the object and the acquisition

• Collect: Yes/No
  • Yes - Acquisition
• Object record - when the object is acquired and used, there is developing records - exhibition, publication, etc. Information accumulates around the object
• Site the sources from which we get the information from
  • Ambiguity should be presented as ambiguity, not be paved over
• Internal cataloging standards
• Data entry
• Need a system for verifying the data
  • "We have people who do research and it never gets into the catalog"
  • "We have one person verifying everyone's data and that's so cumbersome"
• Validation
• Make "public"

Group E

How Cataloging Happens

• related to bringing the object on site:
  • loan?
  • gift?
  • other acquisition?
• it all starts with the object:
  • get information from whoever is sending it along
• very few groups doing ideal, detailed cataloging
• subject matter experts
• recording history information
• basic cataloging:"tombstone cataloging"
  • size
  • creator
  • medium
  • getty id
• challenge for contemporary art to find cataloging standards for new works

Other

Interesting Aspects of Cataloging

• relationship to other objects
• curatorial interpretation
• needs of the audience for catalog information:
• researcher
• students
• general public: e.g. curatorial remarks, etc.