Chapter 3 - Collections computerization at the British Columbia Provincial Museum

Abstract

The archaeological collection contains accessions that have been accumulated since the 1880s. Since that time, the variety of registrars and cataloguers and the shifting disciplinary emphasis upon the nature of description in catalogue records has resulted in an aggregate catalogue of variable, and in some cases dubious, quality. At the inception of the computerization process it was determined that the entire collection needed to be re-examined and re-described according to a modern set of standards. Unlike many other museum disciplines, systems of archaeological taxonomy and terminology have tended to be idiosyncratic and certainly internally inconsistent. Clearly what was needed was a set of objective standards that would guide the re-description of the collection. In conjunction with the National Museum's National Inventory Program, a set of topical entry headings were developed that became the inventory data standard. This chapter provides an overview on National Museum's National Inventory Program. Thereafter, a guide was produced to the standardization of information that filled the topical headings. This included the creation of an artifact descriptive syntax based upon objective morphological attributes and the writing of a dictionary of terms suitable for use within the descriptive system.