The British Museum collection database: how to

create and manage over 2,000,000 records

Tanya SzrajberHead of Documentation

The British Museum

Seminar at Department of Digital

HumanitiesKing’s College London

20th November 2012

Presentation Overview

• Introduction

• The collection database online

• History of the digitisation project

• Role of the Documentation Section and the collection database

• The challenge of digitising the British Museum collection

• Data fields and data entry screens

• Terminologies

• Issues (curatorial priorities; collaboration; how historic academic data is incorporated; keeping information up-to-date)

The collection database online: current figures

2,039,756 objects are available707,711 of these have one or more images

2,039,756 objects are available707,711 of these ha2,039,756 one or more images2,039,756 objects are available

707,711 of these have one or more images707,711 of these have one or more images

The Collection On Line (COL): current developments

• Forthcoming changes to the user interface: improving the search results pages; increasing image sizes; and changing the format of the Advanced Searches.

• Semantic web version of the database: The British Museum collection is now available in a linked data format at the endpoint.

• This data has been mapped to the international standard CIDOC-CRM.

Forthcoming changes to the user interface: improving the search results pages; increasing image sizes; and changing the format of the Advanced S

The collection database online: public comments

First, thank you for this great project.Second, I think that this coin is BMC (Palestine), No. 12 and not No. 13.

I've been looking at your database, and have to say it's pretty amazing- you guys have put in so much work to get that up and running, it's a wonderful resource for us college students!I'm so glad to see the icons online, as they're something I'm researching for my college dissertation while I'm over here in England, and so few of those you have are on display in the museum just now.

First of all I would like to express my admiration for your Web site. I am interested in the cuneiform tablet in your collection numbered BM 58580. I was delighted to be able to access some information about the tablet so effortlessly by using the search feature of your site, and also to see how easy it is to use the related links on each page.

I am writing also to inquire whether or not you have any arrangement for providing a photograph or electronic image of this tablet.

What a fantastic resource this is, I've just discovered it, congratulations.The actual title of this engraving is 'The Birks of Aberfeldy'. Birks means trees in old Scots. Keep up the excellent work.

I think you would like to include in the bibliography a reference that mentions the Apis bull image of this coffin. Here it goes:Susanne Bickel In ägyptischer Gesellschaft, Aegyptiaca der Sammlungen BIBEL + ORIENT der Universität Freiburg Schweiz. Freiburg, Acadmic Press Freiburg Schweiz, 2004: pp. 116-118.I hope this information could be as valuable to the British Museum site as the museum database is to me!

I’ve found your collection database very useful for my work in the Capitoline Museum. Sometimes I notice

some mis-reading. In this case the date of contorniates is 4th or 5 th century AD. Thank you.

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The history of the British Museum digitisation project

1976: trial scheme in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities on bespoke system (BMUSE)1978: pilot project for objects in the Department of Ethnography1979: BMUSE records transferred to MDA (now Collections Trust) multi-user GOS system, on Hewlett Packard computers1979: Documentation Section was created with specialised staff inputting data

1980s:due to interest from National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee, purpose of the database became the creation of an inventory; project extends to other departmental collections1988: online system with terminals introduced (MAGUS) and data transferred to it from GOS

1993: online registration by curatorial departments of new acquisitions1998: tendering for a replacement

2000: Merlin, created by System Simulation Ltd (SSL), selected and in operation

2007: start of Collection online project with data available on the BM website2012: just over 2,000,000 records online; data available in semantic form at an endpoint

Role of the Documentation Section

Overall responsibility for the British Museum database content

Creating and developing British Museum collection data standards and terminologies

Training and advising users on the Merlin database and checking records

International training (documentation)

Data entry

Technical role (database functionality, role in semantic data, listing bugs, testing, suggesting improvements, etc.)

Participation in national and international data and documentation initiatives (SPECTRUM, CIDOC, etc.)

Public access role: dealing with public comments from the online database

The collection database: what is it used for?

Created primarily for internal use, now available to the public.

Collections management, research and public access, marketing the collection

- inventory and audit- cataloguing and researching the collection- British Museum publications- collection care and conservation - object location and movement- exhibitions and loans- acquisitions- marketing

- education and research- answering public enquiries- public access access to the collection- collaborative digital research projects- setting standards

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Flow of academic knowledge and data

 

CURATORS

Documentation Section

DATABASE Photography and Scanning

Conservation and Science

WEBSITE  

Digitising The British Museum collection: the challenge

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The British Museum was founded by an Act of Parliament in 1753, and, unlike continental museums, was largely derived from the collections of a private individual, ,Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753).

It opened to the public on 15 January 1759 ; admissionwas free and granted to all 'studious and curious

persons'. The Collection today is estimated at between 6 and 7 million objects, spanning a vast historical, geographical and cultural range. It includes a huge variety of types of objects, materials, subjects, makers, etc. and reflects many academic disciplines, such as fine and applied art, archaeology, horology, numismatics and ethnography.

From 19thC handwritten ledgers to the Web

The collection database: one system fits all

All the objects in the British Museum collection share certain basic attributes, some relating to the objects themselves, others administrative, due to their inclusion in a museum collection.

So the database has generic as well as specialist metadata.

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Full Cataloguing Data Identification Numbers

- Accession Number (Registration Number)- Other Numbers (e.g. excavation number)

Bibliography

Object Descriptive fields- Title- Overall Physical Description- Object Name- Materials- Techniques- Pottery Ware- Subject - Serial Number and Denomination (Currency)- Escapement (clocks and watches)- Dimensions

Inscriptions or marks

Geographical provenance- Findspot- Place of Production

Production and Authority- Producer or Authority (person or organisation)- Ethnic Name- School or Style- State- Period or Culture- Date

Acquisition provenance- Person or organisation- Price and Valuation

Associations- People, Places, Events and Titles

Location, Exhibitions and Loans

Comment- Curatorial- Object Condition

Conservation and Science

Administrative data

Sources of information

Registers

Record cards

Catalogues and other publications

Direct Curatorial input

Scholarly input from visiting curators and other academics

Scientific and Conservation data

Public comment

The objects themselves!

Merlin screen: Object information: 2D example

Merlin screen: Object information 3D example

Merlin screen: Production information

Merlin screen: Curator’s Comment

Controlled Terminologies or Vocabularies

• Why do we control terminology?

- To achieve consistency in entering terms

- To facilitate retrieval and obtain and the best search results

- To facilitate collaborative data projects

• Which forms are used in the British Museum collection database?

- Drop-down lists: for codes or lists of terms which tend not to change (e.g. units of measurement)

- Thesauri: terms in hierarchies with Use for (or Non-Preferred or search terms), Broad Terms, Related Terms, and Scope Notes (explanatory notes, e.g. for types of objects, materials, techniques, etc.)

- Authorities: terms with other forms of data associated with them (e.g. Biographical or Bibliographical)

Example of a drop-down list : Production Association codes

Example of a thesaurus entry: Object Names

Example of a drop-down list : Production Association codes

The Place Thesaurus

The Biographical Authority

Collection online: The Advanced Search - old and new

Documenting a collection: issues

• Where to begin digitisation?

• Who does the data entry?

• How to convince busy curators to create and improve records?

• How much detail?

• Quantity and Quality?

• Write for scholars or the general public?

• Publish all the data on the website? (security, ethical issues, controversy)

Motivation for curatorial input in the face of other tasks

• Recognition by Management of the value of the work (less prominent than

an exhibition or a catalogue, etc.)

• A ‘champion’ for the project who is an academic and sets an example: in the British Museum project: Antony Griffiths, Keeper of Prints and Drawings

• Having records available to public scrutiny!

• Online publications (ORCs)

• Improved research facilities internally and externally

• Training which is flexible and appropriate to the task (My job!)

• Belief in the value of making the information publicly available

Recording historic and current scholarly research

• Bibliographic fields: refer to recent and earlier publications

• Curator’s Comment field: Discuss and sometimes quote alternative scholarly opinion as appropriate; quote original Register (Accession ledger) entries; etc.

• Producer Name fields: use code for ‘formerly attributed to’

• Online Research catalogues incorporate Merlin (COL) entries as catalogue entries so these are updated for publication

• Responding to public comments through COL

• More generally: the use of repeat fields mean that several possibilities can be entered, qualified by a ? or comment.

The British Museum collection database: providing data for Digital Research projects

• The British Museum collection database is constantly evolving: increasing in size and improving in terms of the quality of object records and terminology.

• This development requires constant curatorial and documentation input, and an increased provision of digital images.

• Funding applications for digital humanities projects should therefore include considerations of the following:

- Curatorial resources for the scholarly enhancement of the database records.

- Documentation resources to ensure data and terminology standards within and across collaborating institutions.

- The provision of quality digital images.

Contacts

Head of Documentation: Tanya Szrajber (TSZRAJBER@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk )

Web Liaison Officer: Julia Stribblehill (JStribblehill@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk )

Technical Support Officer: Jonathan Whitson Cloud (JWhitsonCloud@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk)