Context for costumes: faceted access to historic costumes

Abstract

Historic costumes, like many other kinds of museum objects, benefit from remote access to imagery: they are fragile, widely scattered, and of interest to scholars who may not find it easy to visit every possible repository. Cataloguing them involves multiple facets. Researchers may be interested in organisation by purpose, material, period, designer, or construction, whereas original descriptions may focus on colour or size. Vocabulary may be either current ('blouse') or obsolete ('shirtwaist'). And, as usual, some users will be posing carefully phrased queries while others are in a browsing mode. In common with many museum areas, images are also essential for many users. We are also experimenting with context; many costume collections are relatively small, and provision of an expanded view of an area may assist users.