It is a commonly held assumption that archival, bibliographic, and curatorial items cannot be accessioned nor catalogued in the same application without sacrificing the unique standards followed by each discipline. That assumption has now been shattered with the advent of the practical, easy-to-use, and multi-faceted MINT application. While a museum tries to catalogue individual objects in detail, archives describe their holdings in terms of groups or series. Libraries, on the other hand, although they do perform detailed book cataloguing, may need to conform to the bibliographic standard known as MARC. How can one application integrate these three collections? The answer is MINT.
Via the registration module, archival, bibliographical, and curatorial objects/items can be accessioned together. The unique data push mechanism will transport the item or group details to M3 (MINISIS Management for Museums), M2L (MINISIS Management for Libraries), or M2A (MINISIS Management for Archives). Once the data is pushed into M3, M2A, and M2L, the objects, books, or manuscripts can then be catalogued according to most museum standards (DACUM, CCO, CHIN), RAD (and ISAD-G, DACS/EAD archival documentation standard) or MARC (or MIBUS international bibliographic standards) or any other subject matter documentation standard. The skeleton records are pushed down automatically as determined by the key field, “Descriptive Focus”. The choice at the time of accession will determine where the object/item/book data will be stored. The legal accession date field will determine when the said accession is pushed down for cataloguing.
MINT ensures that collections, objects, and items can be acquired, registered, and accessioned in the same system. Three separate and distinct applications have been merged via the registration database sitting on top of the three key databases. Thus multi-part and multi-descriptive focused items/objects can maintain their common accession information, while being catalogued/described according to the item’s descriptive focus. Given this approach, archivists can be archivists; curators and cataloguers can document the 3DO/image objects; and librarians can use MARC or non-MARC bibliographic standards to catalogue books.
MINT is a complete cultural asset management tool. MINT’s integrated application of M2A, M2L, and M3 enable MINT to manage diverse collections. With MINT’s debut in 2003, it came out of nowhere to lead as the total package for cultural asset management. Isn’t it time to take your cultural asset management up a level? Imagine searching through one interface for archival materials, books, coins, cultural objects, manuscripts, maps, oral histories, photographs, pictures, paintings, serials, and specimens.
“The Little Database Engine That Could...”
