the importance of creating a digital record...
Given the growing interest in the preservation and use of a range of historical records, and also in
digitising and making the data widely available, it is our intention to make effective use of digital media to facilitate public
and academic access to the whole assemblage through Durham University Museum's
Discover system.
Digitised information about our objects would then become available online, in a single resource discovery system, as part of Durham University library, archive
and museum collections. The
Museum of Archaeology is largely focused on the archaeology of North East England but the collection also includes national and
international artefacts. Much of the collection was excavated by members of Durham University's
Department of Archaeology and is accompanied by
detailed archival material.
As cataloguing is an important aspect of documenting our assemblage it is important that we adhere to widely-used
cataloguing and archival standards, for example, by
incorporating four levels of hierarchy i.e.
1. Collection
2. Group
3. Sub-group
4. Item; and by incoporating filenames (for the digital files) that reflect the
reference numbers of the objects in our catalogue. This cataloguing method also gives us greater intellectual control over our assemblage,
creates accurate descriptions, enables identification of preservation/conservation needs and widens
access to descriptions and the objects themselves. This means that if we ever
want to incorporate our catalogue within the catalogue of a professional institution (such as a record office), it should be easy to do so.