Universal terminology?  It does seem impossible, or at least very difficult.
 How do we allow for local naming differences, which should be preserved?
 One solution is to put together a thesaurus constructed like Roget's: a
thesaurus where you could look up a term and find out some other terms which
were used by other museums for the same thing.

Some people may not know that there is a difference between subject
indexing, which is used in libraries, and object name indexing, which can
also be used in museums.  Some indexing lists used by small museums may be
combinations of the two.

At the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, we are using an object name thesaurus,
which we have published, and we are currently developing a subject
thesaurus.  Museums Australia's Victorian branch have published "The Small
Museums Cataloguing Manual" which includes a simple classification of
historical objects.  This list includes subject and object terms.  Because
so many museums will be using this system, we are doing some checking to see
that terms used in the classification list are in our own thesaurus, or are
given references to terms that we use.  I hope that this will be a step
towards interstate information accessibility, even though we do not have an
Australian national standard terminology.

Our object name thesaurus covers science and technology, decorative arts and
social history, including a strong clothing and textiles section.  We follow
Australian usage, and our definitions come from the Macquarie Dictionary,
although not many terms differ from international usage.

This thesaurus is available if anyone is interested.  Please feel free to
contact me for more information or to discuss issues of terminology.

Barbara Palmer
Assistant Registrar (Collection Information System)
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
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fax: 61 2 9217 0158