Christie,

As Andrew suggests, this is where standards and rules for description are
helpful.  mDA has done great work in the UK, and here in the states the
Visual Resources Association is working to finish the draft of Cataloging
Cultural Objects.  Below is the link to the PDF page on Object Naming/Title
http://www.vraweb.org/CCOweb/B-Chap1-Object%20Naming-28Feb05.pdf  

To get to the full document http://www.vraweb.org/CCOweb/

There's also the Getty's Categories for the Description of Works of Art
(CWDA) 
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/cdwa/

Many of the newer description formats, like VRA Core and Dublin Core, offer
the ability to "refine" or "qualify" data elements to make their meaning
clearer.  For example Dublin Core has a "Title Alternative" and VRA Core
has: "Title.Variant, Title.Translation, Title.Series, Title.Larger Entity."

Of course this means that your system, database, etc. has the capability of
storing qualifiers and associating them with the correct data values.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Urban
Operations Coordinator
Collaborative Digitization Program

http://www.cdpheritage.org
[log in to unmask]
(303) 871-2006 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Andrew Schuricht
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 12:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Distinguishing between official names and created
names

Hi Christie,

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by removing one of your two
fields. Is it to reduce confusion? In my experience, more database fields
are generally better, provided that you have clear documentation about what
information goes where. Lots of examples generally help, too.

The minimum standard (per Spectrum http://www.mda.org.uk/speclic.htm) is
that an object be given both an Object Name (or a Title, in your example) as
well as a Brief Physical Description, which could be used to 'name' 
items in addition to the titles provided by their creators. As an example: 


Title: Mona Lisa
Desc: Oil Painting

In addition, we use a Nomenclature field (using the Getty AAT) to make it
easier for users of our object database to find things by subject or
category. 

Hope that helps!

======================================
Andrew Schuricht
Springs Preserve, Las Vegas

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