The HRC thanks Julie Frey for serving as guest author for the following entry. Julie has been a museum curator for eight years. She is currently the Curator of Collections at the Litchfield Historical Society in Litchfield, CT. Previously she was Curator of the Rye Historical Society in Rye, NY. Most recently she curated the exhibition "Goods for Sale! Cash, Credit & Trade in Litchfield, 1790-1850" which is open until November 2010 at the Litchfield Historical Society.

This year the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) published an updated version of its popular resource on nomenclature for museum cataloging. Titled Nomenclature 3.0, the latest edition has added over 5,500 terms and redesigned the book into a more user-friendly outline format.

Nomenclature was first published in 1978 and created by a committee of museum professionals to establish consistency in naming and classifying collections objects. Since its release, Nomenclature has been used by countless museums as a tool to assist in the organization of their collections.

The latest version shows several changes:

• The number of terms has been increased from 8,500 to 13,500.

• While the ten categories remain the same, additional classification levels as well as numerous sub-classification terms have been added.

• The design of the book has been completely revamped. The previous layout of listing the classifications in alphabetical order has been abandoned in favor of an outline format which spreads the content across the page making the index easier to maneuver visually.

• The new format has also added a "Notes" field which makes suggestions for terms that might fall into multiple classifications.

If you have never used Nomenclature before, the size of the book and depth of information may seem overwhelming but, if you simply start by looking through the book and using items in your collection as examples, the resource should become more familiar and easier to use.

Here are some tips:

• Do not expect Nomenclature to be able to classify every object in your collection. View the book as more of a suggested guideline than set of rules.

• The authors themselves define the categories as a "flexible framework" and encourage users to create necessary categories or subcategories to meet the needs of an individual institution's collection.

• For example, the Litchfield Historical Society has a collection of milk bottles and dairy industry material. I created a "Dairy Tools & Equipment" classification under the Tools & Equipment for Materials category.

With a price tag of $100, Nomenclature 3.0 is an investment--but is it worth the cost?

• If you already have an older version of Nomenclature this book might not be worth the money. With no significant changes to the structure of the hierarchy, an older version will continue to sufficiently meet a local museum's needs.

• The additional classifications and sub-classifications are helpful, but if you have been using the previous version and continue to do so, your collection descriptions will not differ substantially from those at a museum using this newer publication.

• However, if you have not purchased the book before, it would make sense to buy the newest version.
  

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