Does the ANS have the most developed research culture around their holdings?

Zoins

Of the organizations that have numismatic collections, I see the most mentions of ANS catalog numbers in published writings. These are not only in their online catalog, but referenced in numerous "ANS Magazine" and "Pocket Change" blog articles. I see very few references to ANA or Smithsonian, or other museum, catalog numbers in articles.

Does the ANS have the most developed research culture around their holdings?

Coinosaurus

They are certainly in better shape than the National Numismatic Collection. Most of their collection is listed in the online catalog and much of it is imaged. Harry Bass is the guy, he got them started computerizing their collection in the 1980s and put up the funding to make it happen.

Ronyahski

I'd say none of them get an "A", but ANS is working at it. Their U.S effort lags behind their ancient/foreign.

NNC cares but does not have the resources.

Bass Foundation has the resources but does not care.

ANA, I dunno, it is a mystery.

Zoins

@Ronyahski said:
I'd say none of them get an "A", but ANS is working at it. Their U.S effort lags behind their ancient/foreign.

NNC cares but does not have the resources.

Bass Foundation has the resources but does not care.

ANA, I dunno, it is a mystery.

Does that mean you think the ANS is ahead of the others since there’s progress? Of so, that seems to match what I see in publications.

Hydrant

@Coinosaurus said:

Harry Bass is the guy, he got them started computerizing their collection in the 1980s and put up the funding to make it happen.

Yes, he did. A very forward looking man. His legacy is invaluable to the numismatic community.

Zoins

@Coinosaurus said:
They are certainly in better shape than the National Numismatic Collection. Most of their collection is listed in the online catalog and much of it is imaged. Harry Bass is the guy, he got them started computerizing their collection in the 1980s and put up the funding to make it happen.

I was just thinking about this again.

It's easy to read about the ANS holdings because they are online and there are lots of articles written by the holdings. They are linked as well.

The NNC and the ANA don't seem to have anything close. The holdings just don't seem to be published.

For example, all 3 have Lesher Dollar holdings, but I can only find a catalog, list and photos for the ANS.

Zoins

Of course, it's great to have @JesseKraft here

JesseKraft

It's great to be here, too, @Zoins. And thank you for all of the kind words.

I suppose it's because I have to deal with it as a daily occurrence, but I know all too well how bad Mantis (the ANS online database) is, and how much we have to grow. For instance, if you search for "paper Continental Currency" on Mantis right now, you will get only 4 results back. I spent this morning tracking them all down and placing the words "Continental Currency" into our curatorial database (Filemaker), so that the next time that Mantis is updated (usually on Thursday afternoons, but sometimes this is skipped), all 252 pieces of Continental Currency will appear. The records will still be incomplete and most will lack photographs, but at least they will all show up. Being one of the most popular types of paper currency, the fact that they were basically unsearchable was appalling. Some series are very complete while others barely even show what we actually have.

I just did a quick survey of Mantis and found that 586,038 objects are listed, but know that we have nearly 900,000 pieces in the collection. When I refine the results to list only what is photographed, that drops down to 167,056 pieces, meaning that about 65% of the collection is online, while less than 20% of the collection is photographed. So much work ahead of us!

Last year, we took a poll of our fellows, and their main hopes for the ANS was to have the collection completely digitized, so that is what we're working on, but as you can see we have a long way ahead of us. Plus, all of this takes money. We recently received an anonymous donation of $250,000 just to update the early modern section of the collection (Europe, ca. 15th century to 17th century), if that tells you anything about what it will take on a financial level.

TurtleCat

I would imagine that tagging data entries would be the most menial, yet useful task. If there was some way to farm out the work to interested people/volunteers it could make a big difference. I know how involved it would be to even get started there but it’s an idea starter that might generate new ideas.

I have to say I’m quite surprised all the data is in FileMaker. It certainly works just fine but for scalability I would probably migrate to something else. Given the nature of the data, something in mongoDB would work quite well. Anyway, just some passing thoughts. Wish everyone success in cataloging information.

JesseKraft

@TurtleCat said:
I would imagine that tagging data entries would be the most menial, yet useful task. If there was some way to farm out the work to interested people/volunteers it could make a big difference. I know how involved it would be to even get started there but it’s an idea starter that might generate new ideas.

I have to say I’m quite surprised all the data is in FileMaker. It certainly works just fine but for scalability I would probably migrate to something else. Given the nature of the data, something in mongoDB would work quite well. Anyway, just some passing thoughts. Wish everyone success in cataloging information.

Agreed, regarding FileMaker. As noted above, Bass began the digitization of our collection way back in 1981, making the ANS collection one of the earliest digital footprints in the world. If I'm not mistaken, FileMaker is the 3rd incarnation of this. We are hoping to move to CollectiveAccess, but didn't receive an NEH grant to do so, so we're regrouping and coming up with another plan.

None of this is really in my domain. We do have a Director of Data Science at the ANS, but he's usually tied up with rather specific ancient projects (OCRE, HRC, etc.)

TurtleCat

Maybe when some of us developer types retire or come close we can be a good volunteer army.

JesseKraft

@TurtleCat said:
Maybe when some of us developer types retire or come close we can be a good volunteer army.

Please do! We love good volunteers!