A collection indexing protocol for Museums already exists. Some of the collections management software has the lexicon built in, making the cataloging process consistent. This link is to the publisher of the lexicon.

http://www.altamirapress.com/Catalog/Si ... 0761991476

"Chenhall's System for Classifying Man-Made Objects created the first common cataloging language for museums and other historical collections. Now The Revised Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging develops Chenhall's ideas to provide updated material so museums can use their collections to the fullest extent. The Revised Nomenclature provides a universally accepted classification system with terminology that allows curators, registrars, and catalogers to describe artifacts precisely. It also creates a standard for cataloging so that in-house record keeping is complete and accurate for use by all staff members and the exchange of cultural objects and information between museums is possible on both a national and international scale. This system deals with information, not with methods of recording that information, and enables even the smallest museum's terminology to be in synchronization with the largest metropolitan museum. No museum can afford to be without this book."

I'm not a real fan of this system, but is does work and it allows for consistent search results. Our Museum uses it.

The real question is:

Are we all using it?

Check out this link, these museums are using it, more or less. We are not totally compliant, but are evolving in that direction.

http://www.museumsoftware.com/custmap/c ... ustmap.htm

This particular brand of software is pricey, but it works right out of the box. The learning curve is pretty short. You can download a demo for a trial run. They have given us good Customer Service.

DISCLAIMER: I'm only a user and have no financial interest in this company.

Of course one additional factor in the area of cataloging and indexing is that some of the most comprehensive information collections are privately owned and actively used by a number of writers in the railroad book and magazine article publishing market. These would be "hopeful" future document collections for preservation with the passing of their current owners provided the families do not disperse them or turn them into cash. Many of the information locating needs of these authors differ from museum practice, nomenclature is likely to be based more on key word search requirements rather than considerations like condition grading, etc. It would be nice if there were a recommended standard that suits both the needs of static preservation and active use. Many folks who already use their archives for writing have developed their own nomenclature systems and it isn't very practical for them to backtrack or change that now. One can only hope that a standardized system might be made simple enough and versatile enough to suit a variety of uses so researchers would find it worthwhile to use as their document naming system going forward.

MX

Two observations:

Yes, there are private libraries that exist with their own filing systems. Kalmbach Publishing has one of them; I believe the library there was converted to what is still called the "Drury Non-Decimal System" years ago. If I can find my file on that, I'd be willing to repost it.

Second:
As a volunteer archivist who struggles almost once a week with all the issues of adding books to a library and "the information HAS to be there on those shelves somewhere, but just how in hell do we find the chapter in one book on a certain Hawaiian plantation railroad/the difference between Franklin Rotary Poppet A and B valves/when the PRR K5's were retired/etc.?" I sympathize 100% with the need for not only better organization and data control/cataloging, but some degree of standardization between museums and institutions.

But as a private individual and hard-core libertarian, I find the attitude--as I sincerely believe it can be read by even a learned and caring person--that "if you don't use this exact format of cataloging/databasing/don't buy and study this expensive textbook/software and institute its methodologies, you are not a professional institution and are not worthy of our interest, let alone such things as government grants and the like" to be insufferably elitist at best and downright authoritarian/"fascist" at worst.

Let's get this straight: Already, with our admittedly crude cataloging system at the Maryland Rail Heritage Library, it takes me/us about 5-15 minutes of manpower per book to: see if we have it, compare condition if we do, add it to the computer database if we don't, see if the National NRHS Library has it so I can send it up there if it's surplus, and create a card for the book and shelve it. If I were using the snazzy-dazzy cataloging software, I'd have to add another five minutes per book filling in fields that we don't yet fill in (but I do have a keyword field). And, hey, we're not even following "officially sanctioned" museum/library protocol!

Now, walk into the East Broad Top shops. By those blankety-blank museum protocols, I'd have to catalog EVERY DAMNED TOOL hanging on the walls, every leather belt, every spare wheel tire, every old casting box, every forge door, probably even the smokestacks. I'm guessing with the necessary photos, using laptops, digital cameras, paint markers to number them, big battery packs to keep the laptops and cameras charged, etc., we'd be talking 30 minutes per item. Hey, when the time comes, do you think the FEBT are going to find lots of volunteers for that tedium?

And people wonder why, when some people make proposals such as these, other folks are liable to just turn around, flipping middle fingers as they walk away and muttering something to the effect of 'guddanged academics need to get out in the real world someday............."

I think I just heard Hank Hill of "King of the Hill"...........

And if you rely heavily on electronic archiving to save space and speed retrieval of documents, one of the most effective ways of indexing is to build a key word string into the title of documents and find them with windows explorer "search" (a feature most people do not know is on the computer). That requires no separate indexing database at all.

MX

There is an ongoing issue in museums… Are we professional enough or too professional…

We need to be professional enough to open the doors regularly, and understand how to care for our collections… We need to be not so professional that we drive the life out of our institutions… Note, I didn’t say paid, I said professional…

The danger is that as unpaid, part time professionals, we adopt “professional standards” without understanding the why. I have seen groups adopt ”professional museum” software packages to catalog the collection, looking down on those who don’t, without understanding the cataloging process be it by hand or by computer. The fact is that we can catalog in a “professional” manor on 3x5 cards… The issue is cataloging and documenting.

I happened to visit Sandy last Wednesday and watched him at work in the Maryland Railroad library… they are cataloging the collection in Excel… They are including key words… One day they will migrate the list to a better data base, but for today they have a system to capture the data. While I was there they had lots of “readers” looking at stuff… They seem to realize that it’s not the stuff, it’s the people using it that count.
I run a house museum… we have the furniture that came from the house. The furniture isn’t special. We have nothing that would belong in the Smithsonian. So at our house, we don’t use velvet ropes… guest can get close to the “stuff”. We give tours for up to 600 elementary students in a single day. Sometimes the kids touch stuff… We offer a “tot tour” for children under 6. Yet, the stuff survives. On the other hand we have collection policies, inventories, and all the “museum stuff”. We document what we do. We offer tours regularly, on a schedule, 4 days a week.

But we try to keep it alive for the visitors. We cook in our kitchen. We sew on the treadle sewing machine, we read the books in the library, we play the Victoria, we build fires in the fire place (with a lined chimney) We are not Disneyland. We don’t make stuff up for the sake of marketing. But we do strive to present history in a interesting way.

This gets right to the crux of the whole thing.

Archivists, by raw definition, are all about organizing, documenting, cataloging, and preserving. Often, they lose sight inadvertently of why we're saving these things in the first place. Hint, folks--we're saving these books, magazines, and photos so people can LOOK at them in the future. As I said to Randy, the best books we have are the ones in the worst condition--because it means that those books were actually READ and used, not just collected and shoved on a shelf.

Look at the photo of teenagers atop a display steam loco shown elsewhere. Are they vandals, or are they folks taking an interest in a steam locomotive? Are they more likely to become interested in that locomotive, its history, and railroading than they would if that loco were behind an eight-foot barbed-wire-topped fence and under a pole barn?

From practical experience with document collections:

In a collection of 100,000 documents, a search that allows up to six key words will get you down to a very short list of selections when you are looking for a document.

In the same size collection, a search that allows up to a dozen key words will get you down to just a couple choices or nail the exact document on the first try.

But having more key words than that will often degrade the seach results. It can turn up clutter, because as reviewers try to fill the additional key word choices they start to get more remote to the topic.

The system is only as good as the people you have selecting the key words. The best reviewers are those who worked with that type of document on a day to day basis.

Incorporating whole document word search capability is usually a needless expendature of additional time unless you are dealing with documents relating to personnel records where you need to be able to pick out exact names from a large possible field of choices.

From a standpoint of being able to do research for writing projects, a well selected document name with several key words in it will also get you down to a very short list of choices, and can usually be found quickly with windows explorer search.

If you are dealing with manufacturers documents and they issued periodic indexes, I would recommend retaining their index system. Developing your own system for those applications seldom produces better results. You just want to make sure you have enough calendar distribution of indexes to cover their entire time range of operations.

MX

Guys,

The SF Maritime Park has the square rigged ship Balclutha which has been on display since 1955. But there is almost no one alive who has sialed aboard her. Most of the people or families that vist think she is a Pirate Ship from the 18th century or a Clipper ship from the 1850s. She is neither, she is a steel Cape Horner, the last generation of wind powered cargo ships.

It is our job at the museum to tell people the real story. And there is always something new under the wood pile.

We have just built a new exhibit aroard called Cargo is King. It tells the story of what the ship carried and why she did it.

We got lucky finding a piece of 16mm movie film in an archive that no one at the Park or earlier museum staff knew about. It is now digitally restored and cleaned up. And it plays a part in three short films that talk about the grain, lumber and salmon cargos that the ship carried during her 40+ years at sea.

Not all museums have the money to put into exhibits that the National Park service does; but all of them should find the time and space to tell visitors the why of what they are about.

If your ride is behind a steam locomotive, an Interurban or street car or a vintage Diesel, it very well might be the first time a visitor or the family has been aboard a train of any sort! So an environment willing and able to answer questions and supply information is one that is what your museum should be aiming for.

In the transportation museum field most of us have a special tool that other historical museum lack and that is movement. We can take folks some place even if it is down a short piece of railroad track; the Smithsonian with all its millions can not do that , they may display the oldest steam locomotive in the United States but the John Bull does not move any more.

So use this very special tool to get the folks into your doors and then show them some of the how and why of what ever kind of railroading your museum is about!

Ted Miles