We have an in-house system for our museum collections (the NMR has a separate one it uses on its systems). For artists we have used the preferred form from the Getty Union list of Artists Names which has a good European coverage (www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/) for people in the UK we find the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Who's Who/Who Was Who online databases also help (although those both require subscriptions).
Difficulties are still huge.
For example if we have an enamel that was catalogued as Jan van de Veld back in the 1970s and we now find that this is either Jan van de Veld the younger or Jan van de Veld the elder but we don't have any one with the expertise to say which one made this object we end up with entries for:
Veld, Jan van de (the younger)
Veld, Jan van de (the elder)
Veld, Jan van de (either the younger or the elder?)
Also if you have lots of objects made by Mr Smith. You are pretty sure these are not all made by the same Mr Smith because the earliest dates to 1700 and the latest to 1910. If you are prepared to do a lot of work you can start to split these up into groups which may be different individuals and add qualifiers to distinguish Mr Smith (flourished 1700, maker of garden ornaments) from Mr Smith (flourished 1901, income tax collector). However you can put good odds on the next person to catalogue a fresh object by a Mr Smith not having the time to do that work and just picking the one that looks closest (or the first one they find).
Trevor Reynolds
Collections Registrar, English Heritage
37 Tanner Row, York, YO1 6WP tel: 01904 601905
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda Ellis
Sent: 25 May 2011 16:39
To: REYNOLDS, Trevor
Subject: Thesaurus of people and organisation names??
We are looking at how we can standardise, across 8 partners, the names we use for artists, makers etc. for our works of art and museum objects.
I have discovered that Finland have a names thesaurus - ONKI People: An Ontology Service for Finding People and Organizations http://www.seco.tkk.fi/services/onkipeople/
Is there anything similar for the UK / Europe?
Has anyone else tackled this issue and come up with their own home-grown thesaurus of names?
Be interested in peoples thoughts / ideas...
Linda
Linda Ellis
Project Manager Black Country Collections Online
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Lichfield Street
Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1DU
tel. 01902 552 048
fax. 01902 552 053
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk <http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk>
www.blackcountryhistory.org <http://www.blackcountryhistory.org>
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