After explaining the unique challenges involved in the digitization of objects in museum collections, Kupietzky (collections database manager, Israel Museum, Jerusalem) presents a survey of museum computerization systems used worldwide noting their successes and pitfalls, a case study of the computerization process of one museum's collection, consideration of theoretical issues, and step-by-step procedures to implement a database system to catalog holdings in mono/multi-lingual museums. Appendices include museum and cultural heritage international standards and organizations, online monolingual lexicons, the International Council of Museums code of professional ethics, a list of the more popular collections management software, methodological notes, an example of a digitized collection, digitization guidelines, and a glossary. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The first guide for digitizing museum holdings to offer a standardized streamlined process.
Translating visual works into verbal form is clearly a formidable task. While libraries have a century of cooperative cataloguing behind them, museums and other cultural institutions have tended to go their separate ways, believing the objects in their collections are unique. Dr. Kupietzky has put together a guide for digitizing encyclopedic, multilingual museums that promises to both standardize and streamline the process. Part I provides a review of the literature and of the problems concerning methods used in the computerization of museums. Part II offers practical guidelines for mono- or multilingual museums seeking to implement a database to aid in cataloguing their holdings. A six-step process of computerizing museum collections (the SAGE-K method) was developed to facilitate the application of these ideas by all museums and enable them to achieve the goal of digitization.
