Make Museum Documentation More Inclusive with TMS Collections

Utilizing the Thesaurus Manager and Batch Updates

Why Inclusive Documentation Matters

As you know, museums do far more than house objects. Museums preserve and interpret human culture, history, and identity. As language and societal perspectives evolve, so too must the ways in which collections are documented and described. Updating terminology, acknowledging Indigenous and culturally specific knowledge, and addressing harmful or outdated language are essential to ensuring that records remain accurate, respectful, and inclusive.

For many institutions, however, the scale of this work can feel daunting. Where should a museum begin when faced with outdated terminology, incomplete cultural context, or documentation that inadvertently reinforces harmful perspectives? The good news is that there are tools designed specifically to help museums navigate these challenges.

TMS Collections, the core of the TMS Suite, empowers museums to update their data efficiently, enrich records with cultural context, and improve accessibility for staff and audiences. This article, the first in a two-part series, explores how TMS Collections supports inclusivity through the Thesaurus Manager and batch update functionality. The second article focuses on practical strategies for managing culturally and emotionally sensitive records in TMS Collections which can be read here.

The Case for Inclusive Documentation

As Angela Kipp, Professional Services Specialist at Gallery Systems, notes, “Museum work is just as much about objects as it is about our society. As such, there is a constant change in how we perceive and talk about our objects. This means that we also must enhance and enrich our documentation to reflect these changes.”

Evolving documentation practices may involve:

• Adding Indigenous place names alongside those assigned by colonizers, acknowledging that objects often originate from the traditional lands of other nations.
• Including terms in the original language of the culture, and correcting misattributions.
• Removing racist, sexist, or LGBTQIA+-phobic slurs from public-facing fields while preserving their historical context in non-public records.
• Respecting culturally sensitive handling requirements, such as objects falling under NAGPRA, which may only be managed or viewed by authorized individuals.
• Flagging potentially traumatizing content, such as photographs of violence or disaster, to support appropriate staff access and provide public trigger warnings.

Acknowledging the importance of inclusivity is one step; implementing it across a collection database is another. TMS Collections offers a clear path forward. By leveraging the Thesaurus Manager, Attributes, and batch updates, museums can make meaningful changes to their documentation without overwhelming their teams. These features provide flexibility for nuanced cataloguing while maintaining the system’s speed and reliability.

Museo Charcas, Sucre, Bolivia. Interior of the University Museum of Colonial and Anthropological heritage.

Place Names: Preserving History While Elevating Indigenous Knowledge

Throughout history, many places have changed names, whether due to shifting borders, colonial influence, or evolving recognition of Indigenous and local heritage. For museums and collections professionals, this poses an important question: how should we represent these places in our records? The best approach is to preserve both historical and contemporary names, ensuring accessibility for users while respecting the cultural origins of the site. TMS Collections offers flexible tools to help you manage these changes while maintaining accuracy and sensitivity in your data.

One clear example of TMS Collections in action is updating place names:

Let’s say you have a lot of objects depicting the Ayers Rock in Australia. Since 2002 it is officially referred to as Uluru / Ayers Rock, acknowledging that it was always called Uluru by the Pitjantjatjara people who are native to its area long before Europeans arrived. Of course, you still want to find all postcards that depict Uluru even if someone searches for “Ayers Rock.” But you also want to acknowledge that it is called something else in Pitjantjatjara. With TMS Collections you can do that easily by utilizing Attributes.

You might use Getty’s Thesaurus of Geographic Names, or you might have your own, hand-tailored thesaurus. In TMS Collections, you can designate “Uluru” as the preferred label in the Pitjantjatjara language while keeping “Ayers Rock” as an alternate term. And yes, you can add any language you need through our Database Configuration Tool.

Adding “Uluru” into the Thesaurus in TMS Collections.

This simple update makes a world of difference. When someone searches for “Ayers Rock” via the Advanced Query Designer using the “broader concept” operator, they’ll retrieve all entries for “Uluru” as well—and vice versa.

You can take it further. By finding all objects previously assigned the attribute “Ayers Rock” and using the batch update functionality to add the term “Uluru,” you can display both names side by side.

“Ayers Rock” and “Uluru,” can be displayed side by side now instead.

This dual approach enhances cultural sensitivity without compromising accessibility; honoring both the original and contemporary identities of significant places.

Object Names: Supporting Original Terminology

Just as place names can evolve over time, so too can the terminology used to describe objects within museum collections. These changes may reflect shifts in understanding, the correction of colonial-era terminology, or efforts to recognize and reinstate Indigenous or community-specific languages. For museums, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity: how to document objects in a way that honors their original names and meanings while maintaining accessibility for diverse audiences.

TMS Collections simplifies the process of adding culturally specific object names to your records. This capability allows museums to preserve Indigenous and original terminology alongside widely recognized terms. This supports both accurate documentation and cultural respect in cataloging practices.

If you use TMS Collections, the example below demonstrates how to enhance your data to balance cultural accuracy with clarity. It shows how tools like batch updates and title management can help you incorporate Indigenous terms and standardize object naming conventions.

One example of this in action involves object naming conventions: you can search for all the boomerangs in your collection and add the Pitjantjatjara term “kali” using the batch update functionality.

Using batch updates to standardize terminology by adding the Pitjantjatjara term “kali” to all objects named “boomerang”.

In addition, the original name can be added as a title using the Title widget. You have several options for how to handle the name here. You might determine that, since it is what the tool was originally called, “kali” is the original title and therefore use this as your title type. You could also create your own title type—such as “native name.” Or you can give it even more prominence by making it the primary title.

Use the Title widget to include the original name, such as “kali”, as a native or primary title.

A practical approach that balances cultural recognition with clarity for users unfamiliar with the Indigenous term is to follow the model used by the Australian government when they designated “Uluru / Ayers Rock” as the official name. You can apply the same principle by setting “kali / boomerang” as the primary title and placing it first in the Title widget. This ensures it appears in standard list views as the object’s title.

For clarity and cultural recognition, follow the “Uluru / Ayers Rock” model by setting “kali / boomerang” as the primary title in the Title widget.

Because titles often differ from object to object, there is no batch update functionality for them. However, you can conduct a search for all objects that have “boomerang” as a title and manually amend them. For most institutions, this will be a manageable task.

To extend this approach, you might also add the attribute “kali” to objects that reference boomerangs rather than represent them directly—such as photographs depicting people with boomerangs, videos showing their use, or documents that mention them.

TMS Collections even supports this process further. The system can extract the contents of your documents to make them searchable. Using the Database Configuration Tool, you can choose whether to extract entire documents or just the first page. Once extracted, you can search for all documents containing the word “boomerang,” review the results for relevance (some may use the term figuratively), and then apply a batch update to add the “kali” attribute where appropriate.

This flexible approach ensures that your records remain both culturally sensitive and highly functional, serving the needs of researchers, curators, and the public alike.

Complex Cultural and Geographic Contexts

The examples discussed so far have focused on cases where a place or object is known by different names across languages. However, linguistic variation is only one aspect of a broader challenge for collections professionals: how to represent complex cultural and geographic contexts in museum data.

Throughout history, borders and territorial divisions have shifted for many reasons; political change, colonization, conflict, and evolving governance structures. These changes can make it difficult to align modern geographic data with historical or cultural understandings of place. In many cases, contemporary administrative boundaries may not correspond neatly with the ways communities—past or present—conceptualize their homelands or regions.

This raises an important question for museums: how should such variations and perspectives be represented within a collections database? There is no single answer, but a thoughtful and collaborative approach is key.

As Angela Kipp explains, “When working with culturally sensitive materials, it’s essential to collaborate directly with the communities involved to determine how their knowledge and heritage should be represented.” For example, would community members be comfortable with applying a broad attribute to identify a region of cultural origin? In some worldviews, places are not merely geographic, they may hold ancestral or spiritual significance. As Angela notes, “For some, tagging a location might be akin to tagging an ancestor.”

When community input supports this kind of data enrichment, such metadata can add tremendous value. Adding unifying attributes to records that were previously categorized only under broad geographic terms can improve discoverability and foster a more nuanced understanding of cultural and historical relationships across collections.

No matter how complex your data becomes, TMS Collections ensures that your records remain comprehensive, discoverable, and aligned with professional standards.

Further examples of this flexibility include:

• Supporting multilingual records (e.g., “régisseur” in France vs. “registraire” in Canada).
• Managing synonyms and colloquial terms (e.g., “pipe wrench” vs. “monkey wrench”).
• Recording historical place names (e.g., St. Petersburg vs. Petrograd vs. Leningrad).
• Documenting territories with shifting or overlapping boundaries (e.g., the Louisiana Purchase).

First Aid for Managing Culturally Sensitive Records

If your collection includes items with cultural or spiritual significance, it’s important to approach their documentation and management with care and respect. Some objects may have handling protocols informed by tradition, such as restrictions on who may touch them, whether they can be photographed, or how they should be displayed. In certain cases, an object’s presence in a collection may be culturally inappropriate and require restricted access or repatriation.

Identifying culturally sensitive materials and determining appropriate protocols often involves collaboration with source communities and cultural advisors. While this process takes time, you can implement interim “first aid” measures to safeguard sensitive records and images from unauthorized access.

One effective strategy is to create a dedicated department or category within your collections management system to temporarily house records under review. You can then configure user permissions so that only designated staff members have access to these records. Once this restricted environment is in place, relevant objects can be reassigned to it, individually or via batch update, until a more permanent, culturally appropriate resolution is determined.

This approach helps institutions act responsibly and proactively while working toward longer-term policies for the care and management of culturally sensitive materials.

Create a restricted department or category for records under review, limiting access to designated staff while developing long-term policies for culturally sensitive materials.

Why TMS Collections is the Trusted Solution

For museums committed to inclusive and responsible documentation, TMS Collections offers a powerful, practical framework. Its flexibility enables institutions to respond to evolving cultural perspectives while maintaining professional cataloguing standards.

With more than four decades of experience supporting museums worldwide, Gallery Systems has built TMS Collections to adapt to the sector’s changing needs. Whether your institution is addressing colonial legacies, recording Indigenous terminology, or safeguarding sensitive materials, TMS Collections provides the tools you need to document responsibly and inclusively.

Ready to make your documentation more inclusive and responsive to evolving cultural perspectives? Contact Gallery Systems today to learn how TMS Collections can support your museum’s mission to steward collections responsibly and inclusively.

Looking Ahead

This article has explored how the Thesaurus Manager and batch update functionality in TMS Collections can support inclusive documentation practices. These tools allow museums to update records systematically, honor cultural perspectives, and ensure sensitive content is handled with care.

In a separate blog, we will turn to another critical aspect of inclusivity: handling confidential and restricted information with TMS Collections. Read on here.

Header Image: Interior of the Indian Museum in Kolkata, the nation’s oldest and largest museum, showcasing centuries of cultural and historical heritage.