Responding to msg by [log in to unmask] (Julian Humphries) on
 
>In article <[log in to unmask]>
>"Robert A. Baron" <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>>So far I'm rather disappointed in the ways museums have
>>employed internet acces to their collection information.
I've
>>seen what amounts essentially to list databases.  You can
query
>>on a single term (no fielding allowed) and obtain a list of
>>items, but no other information.  For example, at
>>gopher.peabody.yale.edu I queried mamalian skeletons for the
>>word "elephant" and obtain a record from Alaska: a wolf
>>skeleton from "Elephant Point."
>
>Regardless of the merits (or faults) of WAIS indexing as
>employeed by the Peabody don't confuse the issue of fields
>with queries by common names.  The word "elephant" does not
>appear because it not a precise way to locate biological
>specimens.  The data in biological collections has many
>uses, but typically anyone needing that information would
>know to search for the word "Loxodonta" or "Elephas".
>
>>The Whitney Museum NYC (echonyc.com) offers some interesting
>>historical data, a year by year summary of the museum, a list
>>of exhibits, etc.  But these are essentially text documents.
>>To obtain really valuable data users must be able to do a
real
>>query of at least a portion of the data and be given a
>>relational-like environment in which to operate. Queries for
>>objects should be able to produce attribution data, history
of
>>use data and bibliographical info.
>
>Well, the primary issue is that data in many museum
>databases is not directly accessible from network clients.
For an
>exception see the WWW access to MUSE databases at
>http://muse.bio.cornell.edu/
>for a forms/fields/hypertext approach to both specimen
>and distribution data.
>
>Julian Humphries
>Cornell University
>
Ok, the point is well taken. I wasn't using the technical
vocabulary needed to access the peabody database in a
productive manner.  But that is the point precisely, the tools
needed to get useful data are not there.  Admittedly, anamalia
is not my field.  But what if I were trying to check a database
from a major art museum, and I just didn't realize which form
of the artist name works were used for the index. (I could
ponder forever.) (Sometimes there is a rather large choice, and
sometimes one must use many forms of names.)  The problem is
the same and even more acute for the online public than for the
professional staff at the museum.  In the Peabody situtation
some kind of thesaurus front end would have helped me, just as
it would help me when executing a query in my own field where
usage and terminologies tent to create many alternate (even
conflicting) forms.
 
 
Robert A. Baron, Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, NY 10538
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