Subject Access to a Multilingual Museum Database: A Step‐by‐Step Approach to the Digitization Process

Citation

Calvert, P. (2008), "Subject Access to a Multilingual Museum Database: A Step‐by‐Step Approach to the Digitization Process", The Electronic Library, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 610-611. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470810893864

Typically, museums have approached the process of describing their collections in a different way to libraries. Many years ago librarians saw the benefits that would come from accepting standard sets of rules for the description of items, such as being able to exchange records between institutions using a standard data format that would work for both institutions. Museums did not follow this path and generally each one developed its own rules for describing items in its collection, presumably because there was so little to gain from the exchange of records, with each item being unique.

On picking up this book and reading the title I assumed the contents would primarily be about a format for the creation of computerised records for museums, and one that would encourage museums to standardise records and thus allow the easy exchange of data. This is, after all, a very significant problem for those trying to maintain collections of data harvested via OAI or some similar method. In fact, the book offers a template for a full digitisation project in a museum from start to finish. The six‐step process for computerising museum collections, called SAGE‐K by its creator Kupietzky, goes as follows:

1. 1.

   defining the characteristics of the museum;

2. 2.

   choosing an appropriate database system for the project;

3. 3.

   initial work before the computerisation projects commences;

4. 4.

   analysing needs;

5. 5.

   choosing and using standardised data for text, images and multimedia; and

6. 6.

   running a full pilot project.

It has its merits as a handbook for those interested in digitising the contents of a museum, for it is much better to follow a full project plan such as the one set out here rather than jumping in at the half‐way stage, which is what has happened in several institutions. Section 5 on standardising data has some interesting suggestions but mostly the author has referred to previously known sets of rules used by individual museums. The author gives some emphasis to handling the problems of a multilingual database.

The contents of the book are relatively short at about 100 pages, and there are 50 more pages of appendices. There is a small glossary, an extensive bibliography, and a brief index. It would be useful in comprehensive collections of information management titles.