Jane Doe (JDoe@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk) Thank you for your interest in the British Museum collection database. Please get in touch if you have any other questions.

1. The British Museum collection database: how to
create and manage over 2,000,000 records
Tanya Szrajber
Head of Documentation
The British Museum
Seminar at
Department of Digital
Humanities
King’s College London
20th November 2012

2. Presentation Overview
• Introduction
• The collection database online
• History of the digitisation project
• Role of the Documentation Section and the collection database
• The challenge of digitising the British Museum collection
• Data fields and data entry screens
• Terminologies
• Issues (curatorial priorities; collaboration; how historic academic data is
incorporated; keeping information up-to-date)

3. The collection database online: current figures
2,039,756 objects are available
2,039,756 objects are available
707,711 of these ha2,039,756 one or more images
707,711 of these have one or more images
707,711 of these have one or more images
2,039,756 objects are available
707,711 of these have one or more images

4. The Collection On Line (COL): current developments
• Forthcoming changes to the user interface: improving the search results
pages; increasing image sizes; and changing the format of the Advanced
Searches.
• Semantic web version of the database: The British Museum collection is now
available in a linked data format at the endpoint.
• This data has been mapped to the international standard CIDOC-CRM.
Forthcoming changes to the user interface: improving the search results pages;
increasing image sizes; and changing the format of the Advanced S

5. The collection database online: public comments
First, thank you for this great project.
Second, I think that this coin is BMC (Palestine), No. 12 and not No. 13.
I've been looking at your database, and have to say it's pretty amazing- you guys have put in so much work to
get that up and running, it's a wonderful resource for us college students!
I'm so glad to see the icons online, as they're something I'm researching for my college dissertation while I'm
over here in England, and so few of those you have are on display in the museum just now.
First of all I would like to express my admiration for your Web site. I am interested in the cuneiform tablet in
your collection numbered BM 58580. I was delighted to be able to access some information about the tablet so
effortlessly by using the search feature of your site, and also to see how easy it is to use the related links on
each page.
I am writing also to inquire whether or not you have any arrangement for providing a photograph or electronic
image of this tablet.
What a fantastic resource this is, I've just discovered it, congratulations.
The actual title of this engraving is 'The Birks of Aberfeldy'. Birks means trees in old Scots. Keep up the
excellent work.
I think you would like to include in the bibliography a reference that mentions the Apis bull image of this coffin.
Here it goes:
Susanne Bickel In ägyptischer Gesellschaft, Aegyptiaca der Sammlungen BIBEL + ORIENT der Universität
Freiburg Schweiz. Freiburg, Acadmic Press Freiburg Schweiz, 2004: pp. 116-118.
I hope this information could be as valuable to the British Museum site as the museum database is to me!
I’ve found your collection database very useful for my work in the Capitoline Museum. Sometimes I notice
some mis-reading. In this case the date of contorniates is 4th or 5 th century AD. Thank you.

6. The history of the British Museum digitisation project
1976: trial scheme in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities on bespoke system (BMUSE)
1978: pilot project for objects in the Department of Ethnography
1979: BMUSE records transferred to MDA (now Collections Trust) multi-user GOS system,
on Hewlett Packard computers
1979: Documentation Section was created with specialised staff inputting data
1980s:due to interest from National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee, purpose
of the database became the creation of an inventory; project extends to other
departmental collections
1988: online system with terminals introduced (MAGUS) and data transferred to it from
GOS
1993: online registration by curatorial departments of new acquisitions
1998: tendering for a replacement
2000: Merlin, created by System Simulation Ltd (SSL), selected and in operation
2007: start of Collection online project with data available on the BM website
2012: just over 2,000,000 records online; data available in semantic form at an endpoint

7. Role of the Documentation Section
Overall responsibility for the British Museum database content
Creating and developing British Museum collection data standards and terminologies
Training and advising users on the Merlin database and checking records
International training (documentation)
Data entry
Technical role (database functionality, role in semantic data, listing bugs, testing,
suggesting improvements, etc.)
Participation in national and international data and documentation initiatives
(SPECTRUM, CIDOC, etc.)
Public access role: dealing with public comments from the online database

8. The collection database: what is it used for?
Created primarily for internal use, now available to the public.
Collections management, research and public access, marketing the collection
- inventory and audit
- cataloguing and researching the collection
- British Museum publications
- collection care and conservation
- object location and movement
- exhibitions and loans
- acquisitions
- marketing
- education and research
- answering public enquiries
- public access access to the collection
- collaborative digital research projects
- setting standards

9. Flow of academic knowledge and data
CURATORS
Documentation
Section
DATABASE Photography and
Scanning
Conservation and
Science
WEBSITE

10. Digitising The British Museum collection: the challenge
The British Museum was founded by an Act of Parliament in 1753, and,
unlike continental museums, was largely derived from the collections of a private
individual, ,Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753).
r
It opened to the public on 15 January 1759 ; admission
was free and granted to all 'studious and curious persons'.
The Collection today is estimated at between 6 and 7 million objects, spanning a vast historical,
geographical and cultural range. It includes a huge variety of types of objects, materials,
subjects, makers, etc. and reflects many academic disciplines, such as fine and applied art,
archaeology, horology, numismatics and ethnography.

11. From 19thC handwritten ledgers to the Web

12. The collection database: one system fits all
All the objects in the British Museum collection share certain basic
attributes, some relating to the objects themselves, others
administrative, due to their inclusion in a museum collection.
So the database has generic as well as specialist metadata.
.

13. Full Cataloguing Data
Identification Numbers Production and Authority
- Accession Number (Registration Number) - Producer or Authority (person or organisation)
- Other Numbers (e.g. excavation number) - Ethnic Name
- School or Style
Bibliography - State
- Period or Culture
Object Descriptive fields - Date
- Title
- Overall Physical Description Acquisition provenance
- Object Name - Person or organisation
- Materials - Price and Valuation
- Techniques
- Pottery Ware Associations
- Subject - People, Places, Events and Titles
- Serial Number and Denomination (Currency)
- Escapement (clocks and watches) Location, Exhibitions and Loans
- Dimensions
Comment
Inscriptions or marks - Curatorial
- Object Condition
Geographical provenance
- Findspot Conservation and Science
- Place of Production
Administrative data

14. Sources of information
Registers
Record cards
Catalogues and other publications
Direct Curatorial input
Scholarly input from visiting curators and other academics
Scientific and Conservation data
Public comment
The objects themselves!

15. Merlin screen: Object information: 2D example

16. Merlin screen: Object information 3D example

17. Merlin screen: Production information

18. Merlin screen: Curator’s Comment

19. Controlled Terminologies or Vocabularies
• Why do we control terminology?
- To achieve consistency in entering terms
- To facilitate retrieval and obtain and the best search results
- To facilitate collaborative data projects
• Which forms are used in the British Museum collection database?
- Drop-down lists: for codes or lists of terms which tend not to change (e.g. units of
measurement)
- Thesauri: terms in hierarchies with Use for (or Non-Preferred or search terms), Broad
Terms, Related Terms, and Scope Notes (explanatory notes, e.g. for types of objects,
materials, techniques, etc.)
- Authorities: terms with other forms of data associated with them (e.g. Biographical or
Bibliographical)

20. Example of a drop-down list : Production Association codes

21. Example of a thesaurus entry: Object Names

22. Example of a drop-down list : Production Association codes

23. The Place Thesaurus

24. The Biographical Authority

25. Collection online: The Advanced Search - old and new

26. Documenting a collection: issues
• Where to begin digitisation?
• Who does the data entry?
• How to convince busy curators to create and improve records?
• How much detail?
• Quantity and Quality?
• Write for scholars or the general public?
• Publish all the data on the website? (security, ethical issues,
controversy)

27. Motivation for curatorial input in the face of other tasks
• Recognition by Management of the value of the work (less prominent than
an exhibition or a catalogue, etc.)
• A ‘champion’ for the project who is an academic and sets an example: in
the British Museum project: Antony Griffiths, Keeper of Prints and Drawings
• Having records available to public scrutiny!
• Online publications (ORCs)
• Improved research facilities internally and externally
• Training which is flexible and appropriate to the task (My job!)
• Belief in the value of making the information publicly available

28. Recording historic and current scholarly research
• Bibliographic fields: refer to recent and earlier publications
• Curator’s Comment field: Discuss and sometimes quote alternative
scholarly opinion as appropriate; quote original Register (Accession
ledger) entries; etc.
• Producer Name fields: use code for ‘formerly attributed to’
• Online Research catalogues incorporate Merlin (COL) entries as
catalogue entries so these are updated for publication
• Responding to public comments through COL
• More generally: the use of repeat fields mean that several possibilities
can be entered, qualified by a ? or comment.

29. The British Museum collection database: providing data for
Digital Research projects
• The British Museum collection database is constantly evolving: increasing in
size and improving in terms of the quality of object records and terminology.
• This development requires constant curatorial and documentation input, and
an increased provision of digital images.
• Funding applications for digital humanities projects should therefore include
considerations of the following:
- Curatorial resources for the scholarly enhancement of the database records.
- Documentation resources to ensure data and terminology standards within and
across collaborating institutions.
- The provision of quality digital images.

30. Contacts
Head of Documentation: Tanya Szrajber (TSZRAJBER@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk )
Web Liaison Officer: Julia Stribblehill (JStribblehill@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk )
Technical Support Officer: Jonathan Whitson Cloud (JWhitsonCloud@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk)