A systematic approach to standardized documentation of musical instrument catalogues within the museum setting

The purpose of this study was to develop a new system for documentation of musical instrument collections that would standardize the list of information that is kept on each instrument and generate a format for information storage and retrieval, making information more easily accessible to researchers.To survey current documentation procedures the investigator visited the musical instrument collections at the following museums: the Smithsonian Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, the Stearns Collection at the University of Michigan, and the Shrine to Music at the University of South Dakota. Based upon information obtained through interviews of curators and/or directors of these museums, a list of information schedules was compiled, as was an inventory of modes of data registry. Conclusions about documentation effectiveness and commonalties were drawn.The most effective modes of data registry were determined to be a paper document file and computer database. The investigator developed a working model of the system including a database that contained the consolidated information schedule. The system was implemented by entering statistical information on ten instruments of the University of Illinois Collection of Musical instruments into the database.The study defined a model for a recommended system of documentation, sample screens illustrating the format of the computer database program, and a definition of the complete program operations.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio