History of the project
In 1979, the project to digitise the
collection and its records began in what was then known as the
Department of Ethnography. It has since been extended to all
other curatorial departments.
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 authority files. The initial recording required
staff to fill out data entry forms, which were then processed
on a batch-processing database. The first bespoke, interactive
database, drawn up to David McCutcheon’s specifications, was
installed in 1988 and allowed Museum staff to access and improve
the records themselves, for the first time.
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.
Since the beginning of 1993 all new
acquisitions of objects have been registered on computer, and paper
records discontinued. Although different types of objects use
different fields, the underlying database and terminology control
is the same, allowing searches to be made across the entire
collection.
A major data conversion took place in 1999
when new software was commissioned from System Simulation Ltd. The
new system included new data fields and new terminology structures
(such as a biographical database and a place name thesaurus), as
well as additional features such as the ability to support a wide
range of non-Western scripts. An important part of the conversion
involved mapping the data fields to those of the internationally
recognised standard, SPECTRUM, compiled by the Collections Trust
(formerly MDA/Museum Documentation Association).
It became possible to add images to records at
the end of 2004 and by October 2007 there were 1,698,308 records on the database, of
which 213,014 had images attached.
The decision to make the database available on
the Museum website was made early in 2006.
In order to upgrade as many records as
possible a three-year project, which began in July 2006, was
devised. The main aim of the project is to scan and attach the
Museum’s stock of photographs of objects in the collection to the
database.
The project will also improve 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.
Alongside this special project, regular work
continues every day to add to and improve the database. The
authority files and thesauri are constantly being improved and
extended, and object records are being edited to improve their
consistency and indexing. As research continues, better
descriptions are replacing old ones, curatorial comments are being
revised and new photographs added.
These improvements are all being fed through
to the database online.
Image: John White, Indian of Florida,
after Jacques Le Moyne