My friend is interning at a Museum and has a very interesting question that
I'm hoping someone can share their thoughts on.  Thank you in advance for any
promt reply.  Violet Ciotti-Rashad

Here's the question:

"I am setting up a system of catalouging about 2000 slides.  They need to be
placed into categories and subcategories for organizational purposes, plus so
they can be linked together in the database. For instance, if someone is
interested in tools then if the type tools all the tools would come up.  I
think the best way to do that is by classifying under function,  because many
of the slides are about tools, textiles,
furniture, etc using the Revised Nomenclature.  But then the social themes
are ignored. For example, when tool comes up on the database I want it to be
assosciated with social-economic,etc topics like labour, artisans, etc. So I
was thinking about using two cataloguing methods.The Function one would be
the primary system and then using another system to classify the social
implications such as does the Social History and Industrial Classification
(SHIC) system. This system is from England maybe you have some input on it,
like how good it is etc? Do you have any other suggestions?"

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