Vernon CMS Help

WHAT IT'S USED FOR:

The Measurement Type field is used to indicate the type of measurement being recorded, e.g. height, width or dimensions.

See HOW TO USE IT, below, for specific instructions on entering a measurement type, but it is first important to understand the general concepts involved in recording measurements.

GENERAL CONCEPTS

Accurate measurements consist of four components, the type, the unit of measure, the value and the aspect:

1.Type:

The measurement type indicates whether a specific measurement is the Dimensions, Weight, Volume, Pressure, Speed, etc. of an object. Institutions with only one type of collection (e.g. fine arts) may have only one or two measurement types (e.g. dimensions, or dimensions and weight) whereas institutions with a broad range of collections, or collections of a more technical nature, may have a number of measurement types.

You may wish to create two terms for dimensions, e.g. 'Dimensions (H, W, D)' and 'Dimensions (H & Diam)'. See point 4 below for further information on the various aspects of a measurement type.

It is necessary to indicate which unit of measure has been used to measure an object. This might be feet and inches, metres and centimetres, kilograms and grams, etc. Vernon CMS allows you to specify a primary and, if desired, a secondary system of measurement for each measurement type, e.g. feet and inches as a primary system, with metres and centimetres as a secondary, or vice versa.

Once you specify a secondary system, you can simply enter measurements in your primary system and Vernon CMS will automatically convert this, and will display the measurement on screen in the primary system, followed by the secondary system in parenthesis, e.g. H 63.5cm (25").

Even if you specify a primary and secondary system for display on screen, the Reporting window offers you the opportunity to override these original settings for each report. Measurement is one of the fields with multiple display variations – i.e. you can choose to display measurement in the primary system only, secondary system only, primary and secondary, etc. This can be especially useful in situations where your institution uses metric, but you are sending an exhibition checklist to an institution that uses the 'Imperial' system of measurement, or vice versa.

The unit of measure does not have to be entered each time you enter a measurement reading for an object. It is defined only once, during the process of creating measurement type terms. At that time you enter the unit of measure the system will use for storage (see Storage Unit) and the unit of measure the system will use for display (see Display Units). Either of these settings can be adjusted or changed at any time.

Once the unit of measure for a measurement type has been specified, you can simply enter measurements in the Measurement Reading field (e.g., 2 x 5 x 14) and the system will assume these measurements to be in the specified unit of measure (e.g., inches, or centimetres) and will display them as such (e.g., 2 x 5 x 14cm). You can also override this when necessary. See the section on Display Units for more information.

The value is the actual number or measurement you enter in the Measurement Reading field.  

The system allows you to specify rules for input (i.e. the way this data can be entered) and rules for output (i.e. the way entered data will be displayed).

Rules for input and output are established during the process of creating Measurement Type terms.

A measurement type can consist of a number of different aspects. Dimensions, for example, usually consist of two or three aspects (height, width and depth, or height and diameter), and if you are a museum of transport, measuring trucks, ships, etc. Weight might consist of the aspects 'Gross Loaded Weight' and 'Net Weight'.  

It is necessary to establish rules that will enable the system to know, in each instance, which aspect of a measurement each reading applies to. If, for example, you were to enter 27 x 13 x 12 in the Measurement Reading field, the system would know that these were Dimensions (because you would have entered 'Dimensions' in the Measurement Type field), but would also need some way of knowing which of these is the height, which is the width, etc.

During the process of creating Measurement Type terms, you enter Aspect Delimiters which indicate the order in which measurement readings will be entered. The system then knows that the first aspect will normally be height and the second the width. You can also specify that a number followed by an h, an H, or the word height will be the height; a number followed by a w, a W or the word width will always be the width, etc. Any of these settings can be adjusted or changed at any time.

Vernon CMS allows you to retrieve objects based on a single aspect of measurement, even if various aspects of measurement have been recorded together, under the umbrella of a particular Measurement Type. For example, even if you have recorded the Dimensions of an object as being 27H x 14W x 3 D, you can still search for objects with a Height of 27 (or less than 27, or greater than 27, or with a range such as from 10 to 30).

Summary of the Measurement Type

To record the measurements of an object, you must first create terms for measurement type, and while doing so, identify the unit of measure for that type of measurement; indicate the way the measurement should be stored and displayed; and indicate the way the system will know which aspect of measurement is being referenced at any given moment.  

Once these parameters have been defined, recording the measurements of an object is a simple matter of entering a measurement type term in the Measurement Type field, and enter the actual measurement (i.e. the value) in the Measurement Reading field.

Because Measurement Type is an hierarchical authority, you can organise your terms hierarchically.

WHERE TO FIND IT:

Measurement Type is part of the Measurement edit table, which is available for Object, Packing Unit and Person records.

In the Object file, the Measurement table can be found in two places: in the Media, Measurement... tab of the Identification window and in the Media & Measurement, Support & Storage window. It is the same table, i.e. if you enter measurement data in the Identification window, the same data will display in the Media & Measurement, Support & Storage window. The Measurement table in the Media & Measurement, Support & Storage window just provides a few extra fields, such as Measurement Precision and Measurement Date. You can also flag a particular measurement for display in reports, using the Display Flag field.

In the Packing Unit file, the Measurement table can be found in the Identification window.

In the Person file, measurement details are catered for in the Body Measurements tab of the Identification window.

Also note that when you select Measurement Description as a field to display in reports, the system, will, of course, use the text entered in that field. If there is nothing entered in the Measurement Description field, the system will look in the Measurement Reading field. If it finds data there, it will use that data as if you had chosen the Measurement Reading field for display.

HOW TO USE IT:

Measurement Type is an authority controlled field. To enter data in this field, you must select from a list of pre-defined terms or create a new term.

Because Measurement Type is multi-value, this allows you to record different types of measurements on separate rows of the edit table. For example, you could record the dimensions of an object on one row and the weight on another. You could record the dimensions of a carpet when it is rolled for transport, as well as the dimensions when it is opened for display. The Part Reference field also allows you to record different measurements for different object parts.

RETRIEVAL:

To search for records by Measurement Type, select the Measurement search field in the Query tool.

REPORTING:

Full instructions for creating reports are covered in the topic on reporting. You may wish to note these additional points about the Measurement Type field in reports.

Display

In Down the Page reports, the Display Fields page of the Reporting window offers several options for displaying the measurements of the objects in your report.  

•These are:

•Measurement Description

•Measurement (Metric & Imp, Y display only)

•Measurement (primary system, Y display only)

•Measurement (secondary system, Y display only)

•Measurement (Metric & Imp, Y&N display)

•Measurement (primary system, Y&N display)

•Measurement (secondary system, Y &N display)

Samples of the results produced by each of these follow:

The remaining options for Group (Down the Page) reports;

•Measurement (primary system, Y&N display)

•Measurement (secondary system, Y &N display)

follow the same pattern.

In Field (Across the Page) reports each of the Measurement fields shown in the sample above can be selected separately as display fields. You are still offered the option of displaying only the entries where the Display flag is set to Yes, or to override the flag and show both Yes and No display entries. The option of showing the measurement reading in both measurement systems or only in one, is also still provided.

For the Measurement Type field you can select:

•Measurement Type (Y display only)

•Measurement Type (Y & N display)

For the Measurement Notes field you can select:

•Measurement Notes (Y display only)

•Measurement Notes (Y & N display)

•and so on....

For the Measurement Reading field you can select:

•Measurement Reading (Metric & imp., Y & N display)

•Measurement Reading (Metric & imp., Y display only)

•Measurement Reading (primary system, Y & N display)

•Measurement Reading (primary system, Y display only)

•Measurement Reading (secondary system, Y & N display)

•Measurement Reading (secondary system, Y display only)