Documenting Your Collections
Info-Muse Network Documentation Guide

Previous page Table of contents Next page

Culture (Origin)

Definition:

Observations:

1. The Culture field contains the name of the culture associated with the object.
2. The term entered in this field should make it possible to situate the object in time and space and associate it with a specific human group. This association is based on its ethnic association, the time, language, region of origin, religion, style or production technique.
3. For better search results in your database, avoid using a large variety of terms; draw up an authority list and add names of cultures as necessary.

Entry rules:

1. Indicate the culture associated with the object using the adjectival form.
   Example

   	Object Name	needle
   	Culture	Canadian

2. You can use a generic term followed by a specific term when useful for research. In that case, separate the data by a comma followed by a space.
   Example

   	Object Name	harpoon
   	Culture	Amerindian, Cree

3. If you are unsure whether your information is correct, include a space and a question mark after the name of the culture.
   Example

   A knife, probably Paleo-Indian

   	Object Name	knife
   	Culture	Paleo-Indian ?

4. If no research has been done to identify the culture associated with the object, leave this field blank.
5. If, even after conducting research, you are unable to determine the name of the culture associated with an object, enter "unknown". If necessary, add a comment in the Cataloguer Remarks field.
   Example

   	Object Name	basket
   	Culture	unknown
   	Cataloguer Remarks	Despite the information provided by the donor in 1929, this basket is not from the Baulé culture.

6. This field may not contain more than one entry.