Hi Everyone,

 

Our museum has just received a sizable donation - the entire estate of a
family, prominent during the Victorian era. Given the overwhelming number of
individual objects, our volunteers are "encouraging" me to catalog items
like sterling flatware in sets, as opposed to individual forks, etc. We're
using Past Perfect, and the general gripe is the amount of time it takes to
catalog each individual item. Here are some of the options:

1.	Catalog like items: 16 fiddle backed teaspoons, marked coin silver,
and add a digital image of all 16 spoons.
2.	Catalog each individual spoon above, resulting in 16 different
catalog records, with photos attached.
3.	Catalog the entire set: 20 table knives, 19 table forks, 20 salad
forks, 16 teaspoons, 20 cream soup spoons, 1 sardine spoon, 2 pie servers,
etc. adding photos of the knives, the forks, etc. to the 1 record. 

 

Since the previous director had barely started using Past Perfect, this
decision will set the stage for all future cataloging.

 

Are there pros and cons? 

 

Becky Fitzgerald

Susquehanna Museum


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