Although we have not had such politically sensitive "new name" issues to deal
with, we have had to accomodate changing manufacturer's names, a few place
names and personal names.  Using the hierarchical lexicon attached to our
database (Argus) we have a policy that terms (names) in the catalog records
reflect the time period of the object being catalogued.  But in the lexicon,
the current new name is the parent of all previous versions of the name.
That way Sea of Japan would be Sea of Japan in catalog records of maps where
it was called that but the current parent of Sea of Japan in the lex would be
East Sea.  Searches for either name would work but East Sea would produce the
most comprehensive results.

Hope this helps.

Deborah Cooper
Museum Collections Coordinator
Oakland Museum of California

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