History of the project
The paper records of objects in the British Museum
collection cover more than 250 years.
They take many forms and use many different
types of numbering sequence. Some objects have been transferred
between departments and been given new numbers, while others have
lost their original number completely.
The digital record
In 1979, the project to digitise the
collection and its records began in what was then known as the
Department of Ethnography.
A newly-formed team of collection
documentation staff, led by the late David McCutcheon, carried out
the data entry using a field structure he devised, accompanied by
the associated thesauri and authority files. Although different
types of objects use different fields, the underlying database and
terminology control is standardised, allowing searches to be
made across the entire collection.
The process of creating records varied to take
account of what paper records were available in each curatorial
department, and the nature of the material in its collection. This
explains the variation of the type and quality of the records, and
the different ways in which they have been entered.
The initial recording required staff to fill out data entry
forms, which were then batch-processed. The first bespoke,
interactive database was installed in 1988 and allowed Museum staff
to access and improve the records themselves for the first time.
Since the beginning of 1993 all new acquisitions of objects have
been registered in this way.
In 1999 new software commissioned from System
Simulation Ltd included new data fields and the new terminology
controls of a biographical database and a place name thesaurus.
Additional features included the ability to
support non-Western scripts.
The conversion included mapping the data
fields to those of the internationally-recognised standard,
SPECTRUM, compiled by the Collections Trust (formerly MDA /
Museum Documentation Association).
The process of adding digital images to
records began at the end of 2004.
The collection database online
In 2006, the decision was taken to make the
database available on the Museum website and the first part was
launched in October 2007. At that point there
were 257,000 records available, of which 107,500 had
images attached.
Publication of records by Museum
department was completed in December 2009, when parts of the
supplementary database of photographs and other material not from
the main collection were also published. Most of these objects are
field photographs taken by archaeologists and ethnographers since
the second half of the nineteenth century, and provide context for
the collection.
In order to upgrade as many records as
possible a project was started in July 2006 to scan the
Museum’s stock of colour photographs of objects in the collection.
It is now adding original black and white photographs and drawings
of archaeological specimens.
The project is also improving the text by
adding cataloguing information that already exists in published or
manuscript form. This will result in the entries in most of the
catalogues published by the Museum since the early twentieth
century being added to the database.
Ongoing improvements
Alongside this project, regular work continues
every day to improve the database. The authority files and thesauri
are constantly being improved and extended, and object records are
being edited to improve their quality, consistency
and indexing.
As research continues, better descriptions are
replacing old ones, curatorial comments are being revised
and new photographs added.
All these improvements are being fed through
to the online database on a weekly basis.
The database is not yet complete, as parts of
the collections of the Departments of Coins and Medals, the Middle
East, and Prints and Drawings have still to be catalogued. This
will take many more years of work.
The British Museum also possesses many
reference books in central and departmental libraries. These are
being catalogued on a separate bibliographical database,
which will be published online in due course, though no
decision has yet been taken about the timing.
Image: John White, Indian of Florida,
after Jacques Le Moyne