Collection Descriptions module

The Collection Descriptions module holds high level descriptive details about collections. A collection is very broadly any group of related or grouped items. The relationship may be items collected on an expedition; paintings from a particular period or by a specific artist, and so on.

As with information held in the Narratives module, collection level information is particularly useful for use on the web, and the Collection Descriptions module has been designed to facilitate web access. One opportunity presented by this module is cross-institutional searching of collection level details. Institutions which choose to participate can allow their Collection Descriptions module records to be harvested and made available for searching via their own website and that of any other participating institution.

Collection Descriptions details are recorded across nine tabs:

Tab Description
Description

Holds a title for the collection, an abstract, detailed description, and dates covered by the collection:

Description

Fields

Description

Title

The collection title.

Brief Description

A brief summary or abstract describing the collection.

The Brief Description is of particular use when presenting the collection on a website: when a search is performed, this abstract can be presented to the searcher as part of the search results.

Full Description

A detailed description of the collection.

Date Range

The period covered by the collection. For example, the start and end dates of an expedition on which a group of items was collected; the period in which a group of paintings was painted, etc.

The three date fields operate in the same way as any other date range fields in EMu: enter a date, date range or circa date in the Date Range field and the Earliest and Latest fields are updated automatically (and can be edited as required).

Significance

Holds a general statement about the importance of the collection, details about any rights that apply to the collection, and any notes / comments specifically about the collection that do not fit anywhere else in the module:

Significance

Fields

Description

Significance

A statement about the collection's significance / importance.

Rights Statement

A statement concerning any rights that apply to the collection, e.g. Some material is subject to copyright.

Rights

A link to a record in the Rights module with details about the rights pertaining to this collection.

Access Rights Statement

A statement about access rights to the collection, e.g. By appointment.

Collection Notes

Similar to the Notes tab, but intended to hold any notes / comments specifically about the collection that do not fit elsewhere in the module.

External

See Parties and Thesaurus tabs for details about internal references to the collection.

Amongst other things, an external reference to the collection might be:

  • A person / organization / group considered to be an authority / expert on the collection.
  • A source of information of some description about the collection, such as a website.
  • A place of significance to the collection.

Fields

Description

Type

The type of external reference.

Lookup List. Types are defined by an institution to suit its needs and could be:

  • Person
  • Cultural Group
  • Organization
  • Subject
  • Place
  • Book
  • Article

Source

The source of the external reference. A source could be a database (such as Getty), a website, a book, etc., in fact any medium which references / describes the collection.

Lookup List. Sources are defined by an institution to suit its needs and could be:

  • People Australia
  • Local
  • APT
  • ScOT
  • Geoscience Australia
  • Getty

Name

A keyword descriptor of the external reference (the name of a person / organization / group, book, website, etc.).

External ID

If the Source is an external database for instance, such as Getty, this is the external source's reference (code / identifier) for Name.

URL

A web address to the external reference, perhaps pointing to Name in the Source.

Parties

The Parties tab holds details of any people or organizations recorded in the EMu Parties module recognized as an authority / expert on the collection.

Fields

Description

Type

The type of Parties reference.

Lookup List. Types are defined by an institution to suit its needs and could be:

  • Person
  • Organization
  • Cultural Group

Value

Link to a record in the EMu Parties module for a person or organization recognized as an authority on the collection.

Thesaurus

The Thesaurus tab holds any reference to the collection recorded in EMu's Thesaurus module.

Fields

Description

Type

The type of Thesaurus reference.

Lookup List. Types are defined by an institution to suit its needs and could be:

  • Object Name
  • Subject
  • Location

Value

Link to a record in the EMu Thesaurus module with some relevance to the collection.

Authority

The Authority tab holds details about your organization's:

  • EMu users with responsibility for maintaining the current record (EMu users who created and / or modified the current record).
  • Staff with some responsibility for the collection itself.

Group

Fields

Description

Authority

Name

Link to a staff member's Parties record.

Role

Lookup List. Roles are defined by an institution to suit its needs and could be:

  • Author
  • Editor
  • Curator
  • Researcher

Date

The date that the record was created or modified.

Project

 

Lookup List of projects related to the collection.

Sub Collection

The Sub Collection, Hierarchy and Associations tabs describe relationships between collections in your institution.

The Sub Collection and Hierarchy tabs work together to describe a hierarchy of collections. As the name suggests, the Sub Collection tab lists any other Collection Descriptions record that represents a sub collection (child) of the current collection (parent).

This screenshot shows two sub collections of the Jenny Kee Collection:

Sub Collection

To change the order of sub collections in the hierarchy, either:

  • Right-click a row and select Move Up or Move Down from the context menu that displays:

    -OR-

  • Click a row number and hold the mouse button down:

    Sub Collections

    and drag the row to the desired position and release the mouse button:

    Sub Collections

To remove a sub collection from the Sub Collections table:

  1. Right-click the row.
  2. Select Delete from the context menu that displays.

Fields

Description

Sub Collections

Attachment field to another Collection Descriptions record that is a sub collection (child) of the current collection.

Description

Description of the sub collection.

Master Collections

When a collection is a sub collection, its parent / master is listed here:

Sub Collection

Hierarchy

The Hierarchy tab displays the hierarchy of collections as a tree with the parent collection at the top. The hierarchy can have many levels: a sub collection can have sub collections and so on:

Hierarchy

Tip: The position of sub collections in the hierarchy is managed on the Sub Collections tab.

A Hierarchy tab is added to the Ribbon when the Hierarchy tab displays:

Hierarchy

Hierarchy tab commands:

Command

2nd level

Description

Add Records

Add Records

Select one or more records in the Collections hierarchy and add them to the current record set.

Discard Current

Select one or more records in the Collections hierarchy and replace the current recordClosed The record currently displayed in Details View or highlighted in List View (there is a faint dotted line around it). It is only possible to have one current record at a time. in the current record set.

View Records

 

Select one or more records in the Collections hierarchy and open another instance of the Collection Descriptions module to view their details.

The same result is achieved by clicking View Attachments View Attachment beside the Hierarchy field.

Refresh

 

When sub collections are added to a collection or the order of collections is changed, it may be necessary to refresh the hierarchy.

Each of the items in a Collection hierarchy has a record in the Collection Descriptions module. It is possible to select one or more items in the hierarchy and add their record to the current list of records.

For example, we have searched for the Jenny Kee Collection:

Collections

Note that the Summary bar indicates 1 matching records: there is only one record in our current record set

  1. On the Hierarchy tab, select one or more Collections records in the hierarchy:

    Tip: To select more than one record, hold the CTRL key down and click each record.

  2. Select Add Records>Add Records on the Hierarchy tab of the Ribbon.

    The record for each of the selected Collections is added to the current record set, as we see in List View:

    Hierarchy

    The Summary bar now indicates 3 matching records, 2 selected.

It is possible to replace the current recordClosed The record currently displayed in Details View or highlighted in List View (there is a faint dotted line around it). It is only possible to have one current record at a time. in your record set with one or more Collections records. For example, we have searched for the Jenny Kee Collection:

Collections

  1. On the Hierarchy tab, select one or more Collections records in the hierarchy:

    Tip: To select more than one record, hold the CTRL key down and click each record.

  2. Select Add Records>Discard Current on the Hierarchy tab of the Ribbon.

    The record for each of the selected Collections is added to the record set and the previous current record is discarded:

    Hierarchy

Tip: Right-clicking an item in the Hierarchy will display a context menu with the same options as the Hierarchy menu:
Sub menu

Associations

Holds details about collections that are associated with the current collection but which do not form part of its hierarchy.

Fields Description

Associated With

Link to an associated Collection Descriptions record.

Comment

A comment about the nature of the association.

Associates

If one or more Collection Descriptions records link to the current record on the Associations tab, those records will be listed here.

Tasks

See Tasks tab for details.

Notes

See Notes tab for details.

Multimedia

See Multimedia tab for details.

Security

See Security tab for details.

Audit

See Audit tab for details.

Admin

See Admin tab for details.

A Collections Descriptions record can link to other Collections Descriptions records that:

  • Form a hierarchy of collections (on the Sub Collection and Hierarchy tabs).
  • Identify other associations between collections (on the Associations tab).

Records in other modules can link to records in the Collection Descriptions module:

  • Catalogue module - for example, using the Related Collection Descriptions field on the Collections tab.
  • Narratives module - for example, using the Collection Descriptions: (Related Collection Descriptions) field on the Collections tab.