The Tabularium Website - Hosted by State Records NSW
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What's new in Version 2?Tabularium Version 2 contains a number of new features, which are outlined in this section. New entitiesObjectsTabularium Version 2 enables you to register and describe objects that form part of the archives. Objects can be related in the database to particular record series or items. While this feature does not pretend to be a substitute for a museum cataloguing system, it caters for small collections of objects by following the model recommended in the Small Museums Cataloguing Manual, published by Museums Australia (Victoria). PhotographsTabularium Version 2 provides for the description of the content and physical characteristics of individual photographs. You can apply indexing terms, produce index to photographs reports and link a photograph to a record item or a series. While primarily concerned with photographs as part of
archival collections, this feature also follows the model recommended in the Small
Museums Cataloguing Manual. FamiliesTabularium Version 2 enables you to register and describe families as an additional layer of context for archives. While primarily intended to provide ‘ambient context’ (see p. 13) to people creating archives, a family can also be attributed as the creator of a record series. Support for international standards and the record group systemTabularium Version 2 supports the General International Standard Archival Description (‘ISAD(G)’), adding new entities of ‘fonds’ (not used in the series system) and ‘document’ (i.e. the individual documents comprising a record item), plus all the additional data elements required for record series and items. In doing so, Tabularium enables you to follow the record group system on which ISAD(G) is based, as an alternative to the Australian series system. You can also introduce elements of the series system progressively into an existing record group system implementation, to get the best of both worlds. Tabularium also supports the implementation of the second edition of the International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (‘ISAAR(CPF)’) through the linking of context entities (organisations, agencies, families and persons) with records entities (fonds and series). Search formsTabularium Version 2 has a set of forms designed specifically for searching. While you could, and still can, search using the registration forms, it is easy to make a mistake and change data unintentionally. The new Search forms are ‘read only’, so data in them cannot be changed. There is a Search form for each of the main data entities used in Tabularium for the intellectual control of the archives: Organisations, Agencies, Families, Persons, Functions, Activities, Record Series, Unserialised Accessions, Record Items, Photographs and Objects. Finding aid reports for the World Wide WebEven the smallest of archives operations may now have, or have access to, a presence on the World Wide Web, providing unparalleled opportunities to make information about the archives accessible to existing or potential users wherever they may be. Tabularium Version 2 has a set of finding aid reports designed specifically for publishing as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) pages on the Web. These reports contain built-in hyperlinks so that visitors to your archives’ Web site can navigate from, say, as series description to an item list for that series with a simple mouse click. Help systemTipsThe original version of Tabularium had a primitive help system based on text files opened from menus and forms. In Tabularium Version 2 these have been revised as ‘Tips’ and integrated with the Tabularium database, so that they appear as pop-up windows. These Tips are accessible from every form in Tabularium and context-sensitive, that is, the Tips accessible from a given form relates specifically to that form. ManualThe revised version of the Tabularium Manual is available both as a Microsoft Word document, as in the original version of Tabularium, and in HTML format. The table of contents of the HTML version is accessible from every form in Tabularium, enabling you to find the information you need quickly and easily. Improved forms and appearanceThe forms in Tabularium Version 2 are easier to use, with their sections reached through ‘tabbed pages’, eliminating the need to scroll through long forms. The forms have been increased in size to take advantage of the fact that most users of personal computers now set their displays at resolutions of 800x600 dots per inch or higher. The increased ‘real estate’ has enabled many of the forms to be redesigned, in particular allowing more information to be displayed on-screen at once. The menus and forms making up the ‘Tabularium environment’ have also been given a facelift, giving you greater control over the colour scheme via the ‘Appearance’ settings in recent versions of Windows. |
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© David Roberts and the Government of New South Wales MMIV E-mail: tabularium.archives@gmail.com This page updated 21/07/2008 |