Museum Catalogue Research Articles

Metadata, Digital Museum Spaces and Accessibility for Persons with Impairments

This study examines the intersection of metadata and accessibility in the digital museum space. While virtual museums can remove physical barriers to heritage institutions, virtual spaces still have barriers for certain impairments. Work done in the field of digital libraries has shown that accessibility metadata can help to remove some of those barriers. This exploratory research project aims to provide understanding of the ways that metadata in virtual museum spaces is being used and how that metadata can improve accessibility in these spaces. How can universal design be best applied to metadata in digital museum catalogs and objects? What kinds of metadata in digital museum collections can potentially increase accessibility? Are museums currently including metadata that increases accessibility for people with disabilities and impairments? These questions were explored using a content-analysis approach applied to textual information collected from forty objects in four digital collections found on the publicly accessible webpages of Canadian institutions of cultural heritage.

Perancangan Aplikasi Katalog Museum Dengan Menerapkan Algoritma Zhutakaoka(Studi Kasus : Museum Negeri Provinsi Sumatra Utara

Abstract−The museum catalog makes it very easy for people to see a list of some of the information presented, the catalog can be said as an information medium that contains a list of collections in a museum so that people can find out the catalog they are looking for. String matching uses the Zhutakaoka Algorithm to match the pattern to be searched from the meaning of the catalog, so that the match in the pattern selection can be seen. It is hoped that the Zhutakaoka Algorithm can complete the matching in the search for the museum catalog, so that it can help the public in searching for the museum catalog.

Contributors

Contributors

The art trade between Flanders and Madeira Island in the 15th and 16th centuries – The contribution of dendrochronology to the history of Portuguese heritage

Flemish paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries, now preserved in public and private collections on Madeira Island, provide unequivocal witness to the trade link that existed between Flanders and this Portuguese territory. This article focuses on a dendrochronological approach to date fifteen paintings from thirteen artworks ascribed to several Flemish artists working in the 15th and 16th century and currently exhibited in the Museum of Sacred Art of Funchal (Madeira Island). The dendrochronological results consolidate the historical and iconographic dates reported in the museum catalogue for fourteen paintings, also allowing a more precise dating of one of the studied artworks assigned to Joos van Cleeve's workshop. Furthermore, new knowledge has been added to the panel attributed to Marinus van Reymerswaelle, indicating that it was painted after the historical dating, in the painter's late years. This study has resulted in the construction of a new historical oak chronology for the Baltic region, covering the period 1157–1599 and based on chronological series acquired from several research studies of Portuguese and Flemish paintings carried out over the previous decades. The new chronology can be considered as a valuable new tool for future research into Portuguese and Flemish paintings, sculptures, and furniture from Portuguese cultural heritage collections.

Chinese Paintings from Western Museum Collections at the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London, 1935: On the History of Collecting and Attributing Chinese Paintings

The International Exhibition of Chinese Art that took place in London’s Burlington House from November 1935 to March 1936 is recognised as the major exhibition of ancient and classical Chinese art of the twentieth century. Over two hundred collectors and institutions from 14 countries provided their objects of art to the exhibition. None of the previous exhibitions had had as many items: the number of objects was extraordinary with 3,080 entries in the catalogue of the London exhibition. Moreover, it was the first foreign exhibition presenting items from the former imperial collection of the Forbidden City (Gugun Museum since 1925). In addition to numerous porcelain and bronze items from private and museum collections, the exhibition contained about 300 paintings (monumental painting, scrolls, album sheets, and fans). While it is generally believed that western collectors only started being seriously interested in painting after World War II, the exhibition contained over a hundred paintings of non-Chinese provenance. Due to its scale, the International Exhibition of Chinese Art of 1935 could be considered a representative example of trends in the Chinese art collecting of the 1930s. For this reason, a close analysis of the catalogue may help enrich our idea of the formation of collections of Chinese art, the formation of taste, and its evolution over time. Data related to the paintings from the catalogue are analysed and then compared to the current descriptions from museum databases and catalogues.

Musaeum Kircherianum in the history of museum work during the Baroque epoch

The museum, named after its founder A.Kircher, is not sufficiently appreciated by museum historians in this country, limited only to brief characteristics of this cultural phenomenon of the Baroque era. The exposition of the museum was a complete author’s model of the Universe, a world of metaphors and symbols generated by the mystical worldview of A.Kircher. A world far from physical reality, despite the fact that its creator knew and took into account the main scientific discoveries of that time. The evaluation of this museum should not be based on A.Kircher’s contribution to natural sciences and humanities, but by the way the interior was decorated, how artfully the exhibits were selected and presented, how masterfully the visual and sound effects were thought out. In addition, historians do not sufficiently connect the museum with the extensive written heritage of A.Kircher, who previously outlined his model of the world order in a series of illustrated folios, which together formed a virtual museum, transformed by the author into the Musaeum Kircherianum, replacing book illustrations with an objective row. The sources of the proposed reconstruction of the museum are cosmological, scientific, linguistic and historical works of A.Kircher, notes of travelers, and museum catalogues of 1678–1878.

Type specimens in the fish collection of the National Museum of Natural History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

The creation of a collection of type specimens of fishes of the National Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine has started in 1974. In the following years, the collection of fish type specimens of the Zoological Museum was enriched by both national and foreign specialists such as E. E. Meisner, L. G. Manilo, G. A. Shandikov, D. A. Didier and M. Stehmann, M. R. De Carvalho and others. Some of these specimens (holotypes and paratypes of eight cartilaginous and bony fishes described at that time) were included into the first catalogue of type specimens of all groups of invertebrates and vertebrates of the Zoological Museum (Catalogue… 2001). This catalogue includes information on 73 type specimens of fishes (10 holotypes and 63 paratypes) belonging to 12 species of 6 families: Acroteriobatus stehmanni Weigmann, Ebert, Séret, 2021; Raja taaf Meisner, 1987; Torpedo adenensis Carvalho, Stehmann, Manilo, 2002; Neoharriotta pumila Didier, Stehmann, 1996; Channichthys aelitae Shandikov, 1995; Channichthys bospori Shandikov, 1995; Channichthys irinae Shandikov, 1995; Channichthys mithridatis Shandikov, 2008; Channichthys panticapaei Shandikov, 1995; Channichthys richardsoni Shandikov, 2011; Channichthys velifer Meisner, 1974; Parapercis ventromaculata Manilo, 1990, stored in the fish collection of the National Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine. Two taxa were not found in the collection: the holotype of Arius dayi Dmitrenko, 1974 (lost), as well as the holotype and paratypes of Romanogobio albipinnatus tanaiticus Naseka, 2001 (not received from the author of the description). The number of paratypes of each species (subspecies) is given according to their presence in the collection as of the time of compilation of this catalogue. In the text, after the Latin name of species (subspecies), the following information is given: collection record number, number of paratype specimens, length (standard or absolute) in millimetres, full label information including water body, coordinates, name of the vessel and cruise number, depth, trawl (station) number, date of collection, and name of collectors.

MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX – EARLY XX CENTURY IN THE RESEARCH OF NATIVE SCIENTISTS

The article presents publications of the late 19th – early20th centuries, in which museum materials of Ukrainian originare studied and published. This refers to museum catalogs,albums and reports. The purpose of this article is to trace thedynamics of the use of these publications in scientific researchof colleagues during the late 19th – early 21th centuries. Theproposed analysis proved the fact that museographicpublications have acted an important role in scientificresearch for a long time, starting from the moment they werepublished until the present time. It was also found that as ahistorical source, museography was emphasized in threedirections: the basis for conclusions about historical facts; thefoundation for the protection of objects of history and museumresearch; and for museum attribution work. The context of theuse of museum publications has changed. In the 19th century,they were used to show the development of museums in thesouth of the Russian Empire. In the Soviet period, "prerevolutionary" museum publications were perceived as tracesof "bourgeois science." Modern researchers consider museumcatalogs, albums, reports of the late 19th – early 20th centuries as one of the aspects of themanifestation of the process of national revival in Ukraine at the frontier of the century. It was alsonoted that at the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century, publications of archaeologicalcollections were more popular, especially materials found in the south of Ukraine. In the 21st century,the attention of researchers was attracted by materials from the period of the Cossacks. In general,there was a stable interest in Ukrainian museum publications of the late 19th – early 20th centuries.

Eduardo Torroja Museum. The Man and His Legacy

June 15 of this year 2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Eduardo Torroja. Without a doubt, one of the best tributes to this distinguished Spanish engineer, who founded the International Association for Shell Structures in 1959, is to remind him precisely in the pages of the Journal of this international association. Not in vain, the IASS was born in his hands. Nowadays, thanks to the relevant work of everyone who has taken care of it since then, the IASS continues to actively lead the international vanguard of space structures. The Eduardo Torroja Foundation, created in 2004 to ensure and disseminate his extensive and multifaceted legacy, inaugurated in 2016 the Eduardo Torroja Museum, which is in the Zarzuela Racecourse in Madrid, one of his most iconic works. Since then, man, his history and his legacy coexist and are sheltered under the same cantilevered shell roof that continues to admire the world, as does the entire legacy of Eduardo Torroja. Due to international demand, the Eduardo Torroja Museum catalog book has already been translated from Spanish into 7 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian.

Review: Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation, by Hannah Turner

Review: <i>Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation</i>, by Hannah Turner

A new species of Cyrtodactylus Gray (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Manipur State, northeast India, with a critical review highlighting extensive errors in literature covering bent-toed geckos of the Indo-Burma region

ABSTRACT A new species of Cyrtodactylus is described from Tamenglong District in northwestern Manipur State, northeast India. The new species is diagnosed from other congeners based on a combination of morphological characters and molecular data (NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene, ND2). Molecular analyses placed the new species as the sister taxon to C. montanus. Due to inconsistencies in the hierarchical clade terminology for Cyrtodactylus species in the Indo-Burma region, recommendations are made for stabilising the terminology and the names for various levels of clades. Based on this revised terminology, the new species was found to be nested within the gansi group of the khasiensis clade, within the Indo-Burma radiation of Cyrtodactylus. A large number of errors and inconsistencies in literature covering species of the Indo-Burma radiation were discovered, particularly in summary tables of measurements and meristic data. Other notable errors found included incorrect identifications of type specimens in figure captions, errors in museum catalogue numbers of type series, incorrect GPS coordinates for type localities, a variety of issues involving GenBank accession numbers and associated data, and many others. We highlight these specific errors and inconsistencies and attempt to clarify or correct them where possible. Suggestions and recommendations are given for authors, journal editors and reviewers on how to improve the accuracy and consistency of morphological and molecular data provided in taxonomic and molecular phylogenetic papers. We also encourage authors and scientific journals to follow or enforce the basic citation guidelines set by NCBI when using sequences downloaded from GenBank, which have been largely overlooked, or ignored. It is hoped that the issues discussed here will be taken as a reminder that errors in peer reviewed papers are an inevitability, and that users of this literature must always carefully assess the accuracy of others’ data when it is important for the interpretation of their results to reduce the propagation of errors in the literature. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:9E00496B-C8D0-4391-B1E5-18522B221FBD

The Status of Flora and Fauna in the Nzoia River Drainage Basin in Western Kenya

The species richness of flora and fauna in the Nzoia River drainage basin is documented through a study of museum specimens, catalogues and databases. The catchment area and basin covers 2.2% (12900/580367 km2) of Kenya's total land area with an altitudinal range of 1140 to 4300 m and varied ecosystem and land uses. We recorded approximately 9.3% (3239/34677) of Kenya's current known species of vascular plants, invertebrates (insects and spiders), fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Bird species made up the highest proportion 58.3% (650/1114) of the national total followed by amphibians 37.3% (41/110), reptiles 45.0% (86/191), mammals 31.3% (122/390), vascular plants 17.9% (1251/7000), fish 6.7% (58/872) (32.2% (58/180) for freshwater fish only) and invertebrates (insects and spiders) 4.1% (1031/25000). Ninety-five species recorded in this area are endemic to Kenya and 42 globally threatened. The species recorded contribute to several ecosystem services including pest control, pollination, bio-indicators, medicine and cosmetics, building materials, ecotourism, research and education. Data available differed substantially across counties and taxon groups with gaps apparent in five counties (Bungoma, Busia, Elgeyo Marakwet, Siaya and Usain Gishu) and four taxa plants, invertebrates, fungi and bacteria where a dearth of information exists. To fill these gaps we recommend prioritisng future survey effort on taxa and counties with fewer than 10% of the total numbers of records.

Heritage connector: A machine learning framework for building linked open data from museum collections

AbstractAs with almost all data, museum collection catalogues are largely unstructured, variable in consistency and overwhelmingly composed of thin records. The form of these catalogues means that the potential for new forms of research, access and scholarly enquiry that range across multiple collections and related datasets remains dormant. In the project Heritage Connector: Transforming text into data to extract meaning and make connections, we are applying a battery of digital techniques to connect similar, identical and related objects within and across collections and other publications. In this article, we describe a framework to create a Linked Open Data knowledge graph from digital museum catalogues, perform record linkage to Wikidata, and add new entities to this graph from textual catalogue record descriptions (information retrieval). We focus on the use of machine learning to create these links at scale with a small amount of labelled data, and models which are small enough to run inference on datasets the size of museum collections on a mid‐range laptop or a small cloud virtual machine. Our method for record linkage against Wikidata achieves 85%+ precision with the Science Museum Group (SMG) collection, and our method for information retrieval is shown to improve NER performance compared with pretrained models on the SMG collection with no labelled training data. We publish open‐source software providing tools to perform these tasks.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ СИСТЕМЫ ИНДИВИДУАЛЬНЫХ И КОЛЛЕКТИВНЫХ НАГРАД В РУССКОЙ АРМИИ В ЦАРСТВОВАНИЕ ИМПЕРАТОРА ПАВЛА I (1796–1801 ГГ.)

Based on the analysis of previously published documents, museum catalogs, reference books, stories from the regiments, scientific monographs and articles, this article examines forming up the system of individual and collective awards in the Russian army during the reign of Emperor Paul I (1796–1801).

Merzifon’da Bir Doğa Tarihi Müzesi: Merzifon’un Geçmişteki Doğası

Doğa tarihi müzeleri doğanın gizli tanıklığını yapan, canlılarla birlikte jeolojik çeşitli oluşumlara da yer verilen ve halka doğayı tanıtmayı amaçlayan müzelerdir. Osmanlı’da da dünyanın diğer bölgelerinde olduğu gibi bir takım doğa tarihi müzeleri kurulmuştur. Bunlardan önemli bir tanesi ise Merzifon Anadolu Koleji bünyesinde faaliyete geçirilen doğa tarihi müzesidir. Önemli müzecilik faaliyetlerinin yürütüldüğü bu müzenin küratörü Ohannes Agop Manisacıyan (J. J. Manissadjian); British Museum gibi önemli müzelerle olduğu kadar uluslararası alanda çalışmaları ile öne çıkmış bilim insanları ile de yardımlaşarak bu müzenin hem kurulmasını hem de uzun yıllar idamesini sağlamıştır. Her gün yüzlerce kişinin ziyaret ettiği bu müze, Anadolu’da yerel bir aydınlanma sağlamış ve müze binasında halka yönelik gerçekleştirilen konferanslarla bilimin halka ulaştırılması sağlanmıştır. Merzifon Anadolu Koleji kapatıldığında ise büyük emekle bir araya getirilen müze içeriği, Anadolu’da farklı yerlere dağılmıştır. Koleksiyonun önemli bir kısmı Tarsus Amerikan Kolejine bağışlanmıştır. Merzifon’da bırakılan doldurulmuş hayvan örnekleri günümüze ulaşmazken, Tarsus Amerikan Kolejine gönderilen örneklerin bir kısmının varlıklarını sürdürdükleri görülmektedir. Bu araştırmada müzenin tarihsel gelişimi ele alınmış; Merzifon ilçesinden Merzifon Anadolu Koleji Doğa Tarihi Müzesinde hangi doğal numunelerin sergilendiği müze kataloğu incelenip Türkçeye çevrilerek gün yüzüne çıkarılmıştır. Merzifon’un müze kapanana kadarki doğal içeriklerden kuş örnekleri ve memeliler bakımından oldukça zengin olduğu, Tebeşir Dönemi’ne (Kretase) ait fosil örneklerinin ise Merzifon’da da bulunduğu gibi bilgiler gün ışığına kavuşturulmuştur. Müze ile ilgili Merzifon’da QR kodlar oluşturulmuş ve sunum çalışmaları ile ilgili bilgilendirme yapılmıştır. Bu çalışmanın benzer numuneler yeniden toparlanarak oluşturulabilecek bir doğa tarihi müzesinin önünü açması beklenmektedir.

Os Meteoritos como Património Cientifico

This paper investigates the importance of meteorites as a scientific heritage. While the significance of meteorites as natural heritage is relatively easy to establish, the implication of their meaning as scientific heritage may be more difficult to define. With this aim in mind, in this paper, we present the catalogue standards for meteorite specimens, preserved either in natural history museums or in private collections, proposed by the Italian Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione–ICCD (Central Institute for Catalogue and Documentation). This work outlines the structure of the catalogue card that describes the meteorite specimen along with other information related to the sample (e.g., archival documentation on collectors and traders, museum catalogues and inventories, general bibliography). This essay concludes discussing the cataloguing, according to ICCD standards, of two Renazzo meteorite specimens, which fell in the eponymous Italian village in 1824 and are now preserved at the Natural History Museum of the University of Firenze.

Wildlife collection for scientific purposes.

Illegal transfer of wildlife has 2 main purposes: trade and scientific research. Trade is the most common, whereas scientific research is much less common and unprofitable, yet still important. Biopiracy in science is often neglected despite that many researchers encounter it during their careers. The use of illegally acquired specimens is detected in different research fields, from scientists bioprospecting for new pharmacological substances, to taxonomists working on natural history collections, to researchers working in zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens. The practice can be due to a lack of knowledge about the permit requirements in different countries or, probably most often, to the generally high level of bureaucracy associated with rule compliance. Significant regulatory filters to avoid biopiracy can be provided by different stakeholders. Natural history collection hosts should adopt strict codes of conduct; editors of scientific publications should require authors to declare that all studied specimens were acquired legally and to cite museum catalog numbers as guarantee of best practices. Scientific societies should actively encourage publication in peer-reviewed journals of work in which specimens collected from the wild were used. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature could require newly designated types based on recently collected specimens to be accompanied by statements of deposition in recognized scientific or educational institutions. We also propose the creation of an online platform that gathers information about environmental regulations and permits required for scientific activities in different countries and respective responsible governmental agencies and the simplification of the bureaucracy related to regulating scientific activities. This would make regulations more agile and easier to comply with. The global biodiversity crisis means data need to be collected ever faster, but biopiracy is not the answer and undermines the credibility of science and researchers. It is critical to find a modus vivendi that promotes compliance with regulations and scientific progress.

Investigating Curatorial Voice with Corpus Linguistic Techniques

We seek to demonstrate how corpus linguistic techniques can facilitate a comprehensive account of curatorial voice in a large digitised museum catalogue and hence leverage its value as a resource for generating new knowledge about: curatorial practice; the historical and cultural contexts of curation; and, the content of collections. We worked with 1.1 million words written by the historian M. Dorothy George between 1930 and 1954 to describe 9330 late-Georgian satirical prints. George’s curatorial descriptions were analysed in terms of their typical informational content and with regards to the extent George included interpretation and evaluation in her descriptions. We discuss how results from such analyses can provide a basis for addressing questions about George’s curatorial voice and, more generally, suggest how this approach could benefit museological practice around the production of descriptions and the re-purposing of legacy catalogues for digital access and analysis of collections.

Zoogeography of marine Bryozoa around South Africa

The zoogeography of marine Bryozoa around South Africa was investigated using published distribution records, museum catalogues, and an examination of previously unworked bryozoan material in (mostly) museum collections. Although a total of 276 valid species are recognised, it was not possible to unambiguously assess geographic patterns of diversity. At all depth zones examined (shore and inner-shelf, 0–30 m; mid- and outer-shelf, 31–350 m; bathyal, >500 m), there was a clear geographic structure to communities that mirrored established regional patterns of biogeography. Too few samples were collected from the shelf edge (351–500 m) and they were consequently excluded from zoogeographic analysis. Communities on the shore and inner-shelf and on the mid- and outer-shelf were more similar to each other than they were to bathyal communities, and the pronounced structure in bathyal communities suggests heterogeneity in the deep sea around South Africa.

Early Photography in the Rijksmuseum’s Collection: A Group of Glass Negatives from the Estate of Laurens Lodewijk Kleijn (1826-1909)

In 1999 a group of nineteenth-century glass negatives were transferred to the Rijksmuseum from the University of Leiden’s Print Room. The negatives came from the estate of the Dutch artist Laurens Lodewijk Kleijn (1826-1909), who also made them. Kleijn lived in Rome between 1851 and 1868, became interested in photography and began to experiment with the medium. While he was in Italy, he came into contact with Princess Marianne, who awarded him a number of commissions. He also looked after her sizeable collection, first in Rome, later in her museum in Erbach. As the curator, Kleijn photographed part of the collection and the museum’s interior. These photographs were used for a museum catalogue and for picture postcards. The Rijksmuseum’s glass negatives show a variety of artworks from the princess’s collection. There are more experimental shots, too, family photographs and portraits, and photographs of paintings by Kleijn and of his studio. Thanks to the surviving glass negatives – and the artist’s estate as a whole – it was possible to reconstruct his interesting life story and take a fresh look at the history of photography.