New York School of Interior Design
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Interior Design OnLine Cataloging Manual

  Index Introduction
     Work Type
     Title
     Measurements
     Material
     Technique
     Creator
     Date
     Location
     Repository
     Style/Period
     Culture
     Subject
     Relation
     Description
     Source
     Rights
     Repro
This page is designed as a basic cataloging manual for contributing catalog records to the New York School of Interior Design Library's IDOL (Interior Design OnLine) digital image database.  It is to be used in conjunction with the resources available on the Digital Image Cataloging for IDOL webpage (http://www.nysid.net/LIBRARY/imagecat.htm).  In this manual will be found rules and interpretations of the standards set out in the various resources, authorities and vocabularies found on the resources page.  This manual is organized by field in the IDOL database (see index on the left).  Click on the link in the index for the interpretations, implementations and priorities to be followed in the cataloging of images for the IDOL database.
 
Work Type

This is a required field.  The work type is the general category that the object the image depicts fits into.  The work type field should be filled with a noun, input in lowercase and in the plural.  Work types should come from the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).  If no AAT term is available, vocabulary should be generated in consultation with the director of the library.  In the IDOL database typical work types will include:

  • houses
  • offices
  • chairs
  • paintings
  • gardens
  • etc.

The work record notes field is required to be filled with the initials of the cataloger for record keeping purposes.  It does not display in the public view.

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Title

This is a required field.  The title of a work is how the work is most authoritatively or most commonly known.  If the work is a corporate entity, such as an office building, museum or church, priority should be given to the usage of the Library of Congress.  This can be found in the the Library of Congress's Authority File, specifically in the Name Authority File (LCNAF).  When using names from LCNAF, the geographic qualifier that often follows the building name (in parentheses) should not be transcribed, as this information will appear in the location field of the record.  However, many of the images in IDOL will not have established titles in LCNAF, particularly works such as furniture, private residential architecture and even many large contract interiors.  In these cases the title should be selected based on how the work is most commonly known, or if the image comes from a published authority, this may be followed.

Some works will have multiple titles by which they are commonly known.  For this reason the title field is repeatable.  The first title should be the most authoritative.  Additional titles then should follow.  When using multiple titles, the Title Type field should be used.  This can be used to indicate "variant title", "former title", etc.  Here are some examples:

  • Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano
    St. Peter's Basilica (title type: variant title)
  • MetLife Building
    Pan Am Building (title type: former title)

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Measurements

This is not a required field.  The measurements field should be used principally when cataloging works of art, paintings, sculpture, etc.  This field should only be used when the dimensions of a work are known; measurements should not be approximated.  Published catalogs of auctions, exhibitions or artists' works usually include reliable information on measurements.  When available this information should be included in the catalog record.  The measurement field is repeatable, so both Imperial and Metric measurements can be given for the same image.  There is a measurement unit field which should be used to indicate whether the measurements indicated are Imperial or Metric. 

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Materials

This is not a required field.  The materials field should be used for works of art, furniture and for details of architectural elements that are made of one or two materials, for example a Japanese shoji screen would be wood and paper, a sculpture by Alexander Calder would be steel.  This field is repeatable, so for the shoji screen mentioned above, "wood" would be used in one field and "paper" would be used in a second field.  Names for materials should come from the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).  The materials field should not be used in cataloging large works such as architecture and interiors, as so many materials are used in these works as to render this field useless for searching.

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Technique

This is not a required field.  The technique field is used chiefly in cataloging works of art.  Examples of technique would include "painting", "etching", "multimedia", etc.  Terms to describe technique should come from the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).  If a particular technique is not present in the AAT, vocabulary should be developed in consultation with the Director of the Library.  The technique field is repeatable, so if more than one technique is involved in a work, the field should be repeated.  This would be the case for a hand-colored print for example.  Here one would use first "etching" and then "watercolor" if the work was an etching colored with watercolors.

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Creator

The creator field is required when the work's creator is known.  A work may have more than one creator, such as a building with an architect and and interior designer.  For this reason the creator field is repeatable.  Creator names should be taken from the Library of Congress's Name Authority File (LCNAF).  If LCNAF does not contain the creator's name, the Getty's Union List of Artists' Names (ULAN) should be used.  If neither LCNAF or ULAN contain the name, the name should be constructed following the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition (AACR2); this should be done in consultation with the Director of the Library.  Creator names can be either personal (e.g. an architect, designer or artist) or corporate (e.g. an architectural or design firm).  When establishing a creator record the following fields are available:

  • Creator name: enter as it appears in LCNAF without the dates.
  • Creator last name: enter creator last name (if personal).
  • Creator first name: enter creator first name (if personal).
  • Creator name variant: enter here the 4XX fields from LCNAF or variants from ULAN.  This is a repeatable field and should be repeated for all listed variants in the authority being used.
  • Creator dates: the date range following the name in LCNAF should be entered here, if it is closed (e.g. birth and death dates)
  • Creator early date: here is entered the creator's birth date.
  • Creator late date: here is entered the creator's death date.
  • Creator nationality: here is entered the creator's nationality in adjectival form.
  • Creator type: here is entered the creators practice (e.g. architects, interior designers, artists, etc.).  Creator types should be taken from the AAT.

The work record contains the following fields for creator:

  • Creator name: the creators name will come from the creator record.
  • Creator dates: the dates should appear automatically from the creator record when the creator name is selected.
  • Creator nationality: the creator nationality should appear automatically from the creator record when the creator name is selected.
  • Creator Role: the creator role field is used to express the role a creator played in a given work. So here there is not necessarily a one to one correspondence between creator role and creator type in the creator record.  For example an architect may make a sculpture, so in the creator record his or her type would be "architects", while in the work record his or her role would be "sculptors".  Creator roles should come from the AAT.

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Date

The date field is a required field.  However, it can be as specific or general as needed.  If the exact year of a work is known, it should be entered in the display date field.  If the year is not known, but the work is known to be from the eighteenth century, "18th century" should be entered in the display date field.  If only the beginning date of a project is known it should be entered in the early date field.  If only the finishing date of a project is known it should be entered in the late date field.

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Location

The location field is required only for works that have a fixed location, such as buildings or site-specific art installations.  The location of works of art that are not fixed can be addressed using the repository field (q.v.).  The location here referred to is geographic location only.  Geographic locations should be taken from the Library of Congress's Name Authority File (LCNAF).  If LCNAF does not contain the desired geography the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency's GEOnet database or the Getty's Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) should be used to establish the location; however, the locations should be established following the guidelines of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition in consultation with the Director of the Library.

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Repository

The repository field is not required.  It is used for works that are in museums or other public or private collections.  This field should only be used when the current repository of a work is known; past repositories for the work should not be listed.  Repository names are corporate names and should be taken from the Library of Congress's Name Authority File (LCNAF).  If the name of a repository does not exist in LCNAF, it should be established following the rules of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition in consultation with the Director of the Library.

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Style/Period

The style/period field is required.  The style/period refers to the artistic style, movement or period that the work belongs to.  Examples of this would be Medieval, Renaissance, Greek (ancient), Contemporary, Art Deco, Futurist, etc.  As some works cross these boundaries, this is a repeatable field and all appropriate style/period terms should be applied to a given work.  Style/period terms should come from the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).  If no appropriate term exists in the AAT for a given work, it should be established in consultation with the Director of the Library.

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Culture

The culture field is required.  The culture field will be an adjective describing the nationality of the work at the time of its creation, so work from Constantinople from 1200 will be Byzantine, not Turkish; the modern geography will be discernable from the location field (e.g. Istanbul (Turkey).  In some cases, such as the example here cited, the culture adjective will be the same as the adjective used in the style/period field.  In rare cases a work might contain important elements from two cultures, such as Greek art in southern Italy.  In these cases the field may be repeated, using Greek and Italian.  Adjectives for culture will be found in the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) or will be simply the adjectival form of modern nationalities (e.g. American, British, French, Japanese, Iraqi, Pakistani, etc.).

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Subject

The subject is a required field and it will usually be a repeated field.  Subject terms address the aspects of the work that are being represented in the image.  The terms will be taken from the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT).  If the AAT does not contain a necessary subject term, the Library of Congress Subject Authority File (LCSAF) should be consulted.  If neither AAT or LCSAF contain a needed term, one should be established in consultation with the Director of the Library.  Usage of the field will include the representation of the work such as "floor plans", "cross sections", "site plans", "interior views", "exterior views", etc.  The field will also be used to indicate the part of the work being depicted: "bedrooms", "kitchens", "facades", "fireplaces", "gardens", "entrances", "stairs", etc.  The IDOL database will also use the subject field to specify "contract design" or "residential design" on all works that are buildings or interiors.

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Relation

The relation field is not required, but is often applicable.  When the image represents a part of a larger work or a work associated with another work, this field should be used.  There are two fields in the relation section of the work record.  The first is the related object field.  In this field should be placed the title of the related work.  If the image is a floor plan of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, then "Monticello" would be used, this will be identical with the title field of the record.  The nest field in the relation section of the record is relation type.  In the case described above, this field would be filled with "floor plans", again, this repeats a term already used, this time in the subject field.  However, sometimes this field will be used differently.  For example, if the work being cataloged is one of Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chairs, the related object would be "Barcelona Pavilion" and the relation type would be "architectural furniture".  Some images being cataloged might have relations to multiple works and therefore this is a repeatable field.

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Description

The description field is required.  This field is a free form, English language, concise sentence or short paragraph describing the work as represented in the image.  It can be used to include any necessary data not covered in the general cataloging or to place any necessary interpretive information.  Examples of descriptions would be as follows:

  • Interior view of the lobby of the Chrysler Building, 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, New York, highlighting the ceiling mural depicting modes of transportation.
  • View of an eighteenth-century English secretaire, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England.
  • Exterior view of the Blue Mosque, Istanbul, seen from the northeast.
  • Section and plan of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois.

For plans, sections, site plans, etc., the description field should also be filled with "architectural drawings".  The description field may be repeated.

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Source

The source field is not required.  It can be used when the source of an image is known.  It should be used if the source is of particular importance.  For example if a floor plan of the Pantheon comes from the first edition of Palladio's Quattro libri dell'architettura, this title would go in the source field.  The source details field should then be used to indicate "1st ed., 1570", and "plate XLVII".  This is important information as a plan from such a source may not be accurate or the building might have been altered since then.

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Rights

This field is required when images are in the public collection and not in the public domain.  While NYSID will always have the rights to these images, the school may not have sole rights to them; they may be shared with the creator of the work, if he or she gave NYSID permission to store them in IDOL (this will commonly be the case with images of works from NYSID exhibitions).  Thus this field must be filled in consultation with the Director of the Library.  For the teaching collection this field will be used if a contributor (e.g. faculty member) wants to retain title to an image, otherwise, it can be left blank.

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Repro

The reproduction fields are generally not required.  They refer to the actual image and not to the work represented.  The repro type field refers to the medium of the scanned or digitally photographed image.  Thus it might be "color slide", "lantern slide", "black and white photograph", "blue print" etc.  The repro creator name refers to the person who made the image which was digitized, not the work itself, (e.g. the photographer).  So an image of Margaret Bourke-White's photograph of the spire of the Chrysler Building would have "Margaret Bourke-White", not Van Allen as repro creator name; Van Allen would be the work creator (q.v.).  The repro creator role thus would be "photographer".  These fields should be used when the repro creator is a well known artist and the repro has intrinsic value as a work in itself, such as the case of Margaret Bourke-White.  It should also be used if the repro creator is a NYSID faculty member.

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Compiled by Eric Wolf, version 1, June 14, 2004.  ©2004, New York School of Interior Design and Eric Wolf

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