4 Nomenclature
This section briefly discusses first the history of Nomenclature as a tool for museum object registration and second some of the issues that can arise when the system is improperly used. Having an interest in controlled vocabularies and data dictionaries, Craig was generally aware of the existence of Nomenclature but had not previously worked with this particular lexicon. However, being generally interested in such schemes Craig set out to understand Nomenclature’s proper use and history. Much of the information on use is bound up with understanding the system’s history, and that history does not appear particularly well synthesized in a single easily accessible location. While the brief discussion that follows is far from comprehensive, hopefully the resources gathered here will help others get up to speed quickly.
4.1 A very brief history of Nomenclature
The International Society for Knowledge Organization offers a short history of Nomenclature 3.0 and 4.0. Other than the Nomenclature website itself, this is one of the more useful resources.
The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) posted a video entitled Nomenclature 3.0: Terms of Endearment which covers 1) a historical overview, 2) a review of changes tot he system, and 3) an introduction to the Nomenclature 3.0 book.
The following are select milestones in the project’s history gleaned from the video:
- 1968 Holman J. “Jerry” Swinney called for a standardized intellectually rigorous internally consistent method of cataloging historical museum objects comparable to the Linnaean system.
- 1972 Jerry Swinney became director of Strong Museum in Rochester and Museum Database Coordinating Committee was organized in Hershey PA.
- 1974 Swinney hired Robert Chenhall to be director of Data Services for Strong Museum and when Database Coordinating committee met in NY. Swinney hired Chenhall to create the system that Swinney envisioned. Chenhall created the original nomenclature. Most early developments took place on the East Coast.
- Chenhall was trained as an archaeologist and anthropologist. After Nomenclature 1, Chenhall became director of Natural History Museum of Buffalo, 1980 went to New Mexico and served as first Director of Museum of Natural History in ABQ. Was a pioneer and original thinker.
- Work on 3.0 began in 2000 among a group of volunteers and was a collaborative effort.
John Hart Executive Director at the Sullivan Museum & History Center at Norwich University offers additional insight in his presentation entitled Virtual Roundtable: Museum Nomenclature. The video explains some of the relatively recent updates in Nomenclature and provides some examples of the system in use. Towards the end, there is a discussion of introducing new terms into Nomenclature.
The following are time stamps of interesting points for consideration:- Nomenclature seeks to establish a common language of description
- 3:30 for unique objects that naming scheme might not be the same from one museum to another.
- 8:20 The last print edition of Nomenclature was in 2015. The system moved to web only around 2020.
- 11:30 objects are still lacking, there is a need to build out the taxonomy to include additional objects.
- 11:53 “It doesn’t have everything yet. Like I said, it’s going to take some time for us to get there.” said Hart.
- 12:12 v3.0 is in PP. Hart uses Re:discovery which is what he says that the National Parks Service uses and that v 4.0 is already built into this system.
- 12:50 There are no dramatic changes going from v3 to v4 and one can add modified terms in PP.
- 14:40 One can download the schema. They are working on getting a new term submission form. If you think you encountered something standard and it doesn’t exist it can be submitted to the taskforce and the term will be reviewed.
- 15:05 Looking for museums to contribute term ideas to improve the platform. All new submissions are reviewed.
- 25:00 Question: how does one deal with specialized terms.
- 29:00 Use of familiar terms, particularly as external requests.
- 34:00 Dual language lacking. It exists for French but there is a need to consider for Spanish.
- 40:22 What about terms from historically overlooked cultures, like Native American groups? Where is the task force on this? Answer: The task force tried to look at Native American terms. Each group has their own term for an object. If the form is a basket, then it is a basket even if this is not the emic term. It is a difficult question how to incorporate different languages into a system that is supposed to be easy to use.
- 52:50 If you come across anything unique that should be identified, then let me know—said Hart at the close of the presentation.
4.2 Misuse of Nomenclature at University Museum
Craig notes that initially none of the students seemed to have a firm grasp on Nomenclature, particularly its role outside of and prior to PastPerfect’s development. None of the students were aware of the Nomenclature website nor of the fact that this structured vocabulary is more than 50 years in the making.
When filling values to the objname field (Section 2.3.1), most students were exclusively using PastPerfect’s look-up function. This may be fine once a registrar has a good sense of the term they are looking for. However, without appreciating where a term falls in the hierarchy one can make incorrect designations.
Figure 4.1 (a) is clearly a feather, and obviously not a tool for breaking stone. In fact, recent consultations with Zuni Elder Octavius Seowtewa suggests that objects of this nature may have been used in curing ceremonies. Figure 4.1 (b) shows the designation of this same object in the database as a type of stoneworking tool; this is obviously erroneous. Figure 4.1 (c) illustrates an actual masonry feather that is used for splitting stone–rather than a bird feather. Attention to category and concept can minimize this kind of erroneous designations. Craig stressed the need to use the Nomenclature website and to pay close attention to where any particular term falls within the hierarchical system that is based on object function.
The error above pertains to a single object. However, these issues can compound when common objects are consistently misattributed. Several students were logging museum objects as “pottery” not realizing that the PastPerfect entry for “pottery” does not pertain to pottery vessels but rather to pottery factories. This makes sense because Nomenclature is a system based on function, and “pottery” is not a function of a vessel but it can be a type of factory. This misunderstanding of Nomenclature led to a situation where the inventory database indicated that the Museum owned hundreds of pottery factories. While there are historically important pottery factories in the region (Figure 4.2), the Museum does not own any pottery factories. Rather, the museum owns many: bowls, vessels, jars, etc.
