Jeff,
Yes and No, seems to be the answer  to your question of cross listing
artifacts.

I finding that many museums are cross-referencing Nomenclature categories.
I tend to disagree with that for two reasons:  1)    Nomenclature, (which
has pretty much become the standard for history museums and is useful for
anthropological collections as well  --aren't they just someone elses
history?),  is considered a taxonomy of man-made items, and in a true
taxonomy you can't put things in more than one place -each has only one
relationship to all others --original intended (primary) use in the case of
man-made things.  The instructions in   N. is to use a single classification
and if it is hard to choose, the system was arranged heirarchically so that
you should use the one that came first in the heirarchy.   2) Using this
provides a structure that allows you to know exactly how many artifacts of
each type you have.  If you start cross cataloguing, you will skew your
artifact count per category.   3) I think 'original intended use' is a
somewhat limited way of classifying artifacts. Many have associations that
have little or nothing to do with actual use.

That's why I advocate a separate data field for subject headings based on
what I call "associated human activities" in which you can cross-list to
your hearts content.  For the development of interesting exhibits based on
concepts not just a type of artifact, this is really the more useful data
field in my estimation, because you can retrieve so many different things,
from classifications that you might never think to look in.  (example:  a
lunch box associated with a  particular trade or industry - or how about a
horsewhip used to train a pachyderm??).    Especially with photos, which
often show lots of different things in one, I have given as many as 10
subject headings (though the average is probably two or three).  Of course
this takes more time up front when your are cataloguing, but it seems like
'that's the job'....

It would be good to hear how other's are dealing with multiple
associations......

Lucy Skjelstad





Jeff wrote:

> I am not a collections manager, but would it not be acceptable to cross
> list objects
> such as Tarot cards.   Just a thought.
>
> Jeff Northam