Museum of Science and Industry

This section provides an explanation of each field and suggestions on how to get the best results when carrying out an enquiry.  Your choice of fields to complete will depend on your particular interest(s).  One tip that applies to all fields is that what you type in the field only needs to match part of one or more terms used in that field.  This has two main advantages: first, if a field does not have a pick list, you may have a better chance of success if you use a broader term (e.g. telescope, rather than reflecting telescope); second, if the field has a pick list but you find the terms too specific, you could use one word that is shared by several terms (e.g. cooker to include gas cookers and electric cookers).  For example, if you typed engine in the Item Name field, the list of results would include steam engines, gas engines and any other items where engine is part of the name.

The fields are presented below in the order in which they appear in the Research query form.  Italics are used to denote a term that you might enter and double inverted commas are used to bracket precise terms found in the database, as shown for the terms in the short pick lists.  Using double inverted commas will always produce exact matches only, like the 'with the exact phrase' advanced search option commonly available in Internet search engines.  Entering several words in a field without using double inverted commas is equivalent to doing a 'with all of the words' advanced search with an Internet search engine.  This can be very useful, as it means that you do not need to worry about the order of the words, as explained below for the 'Item Name' field. 

Collection Category.  As shown by the pick list, the collections are divided into two broad categories, "Object" and "Archive".  You should complete this field if you are only interested in one of these categories of material.  Clicking on the 'About the collections' button on the top navigation bar will take you to a page that gives brief background information on the range of material that the Museum collects.

Subject.  This query field provides a way of identifying the full range of objects and archives relating to a subject area.  There is no pick list because it relates to two data fields.  As illustrated in the hint alongside the field, a subject area may be generic, such as "textiles", or specific, such as 1832 Reform Act.    

Type of Item.  This field is used to express the physical format of the item.  All items in the "Object" category are also known as "Object" here, whereas items in the "Archive" category are subdivided into media.  Where applicable, select the term relevant to your interests from the pick list.

Registration Number.  The Museum gives all items a unique registration number as a way of identifying them precisely.  These numbers take the form of a year followed by a separator (a full stop) followed by one or more blocks of numbers - e.g. 2002.5 or 1996.10.89.  You are only likely to know the registration number of a particular item if you have noted it down during a visit to the Museum.  However, if you are interested in seeing a list of the items that were registered during a particular year, you can achieve this by just entering the year alone. 

Collection Name.  This field is most relevant to items that entered the Museum as part of a pre-existing collection, where the name is usually the name of the collector and/or donor.  Select a name from the pick list, which includes all valid names.  This field is also used for broad categories of objects, such as Aviation or Chemistry.  

Object Name.  This field provides a narrower way of grouping items than 'Collection Category' or 'Type of Item'.  There is no pick list for this query field because it links to four data fields, which relate to different classification systems.  You should use the singular form of a name - i.e. computer rather than computers.  In the case of terms involving more than one word, you can put the same combination of words in any order - for example, single-lens reflex camera or camera, single-lens reflex - and, as long as you do not use double inverted commas to bracket the words, you will get the same results. 

Brand Name.  This field may be useful if your interest relates to consumer products, which are sometimes known by a brand name rather than a maker's name.  For example, Hotpoint began as a brand name, although it is now the name of the company that makes products of that brand.  Conversely, sometimes maker's names become brand names when companies are taken over or sell off parts of their business: for example, when E. K. Cole Ltd acquired Ferranti Ltd's radio and television business, it retained Ferranti as a brand name for relevant models.  Other examples of brand names include Magnet (used by GEC) and Cosmos (used by Metropolitan-Vickers).

Model Name: For some products, this might be a model number, type number or a maker's catalogue number, rather than a model name.  This field would be used for any of those variants.  Aside from Registration Number, it is the most specific way of identifying an item, where applicable.  As part of a model name may be used for more than one model (e.g. the Kodak Brownie range of models), you can enter the shared part of the name to find all corresponding models.   

Patent Number.  This field would be useful if you were interested in finding items that have a patented technical feature. 

Design Registration Number.  This field would be useful if you were interested in finding items that have a registered design.

Association Type.  This defines the type of association that a person or organisation has with an item. Select a name from the pick list, which includes all valid terms.  You should bear in mind that, in some cases, one association name might have different types of association with different items.  For example, a manufacturing company might be the maker of one item, the user of another (such as its production machinery or office equipment) and the subject of yet another (such as a picture of its factory). 

Association Name.  This will relate to a person or an organisation.  An organisation's name is expressed in full and not as an acronym - e.g. "General Electric Co. Ltd" rather than GEC.  Organisations featured here include educational organisations and retailers, as well as manufacturing companies.  A person's name will consist of a surname and, as a minimum, a title or initial(s).  Where known, the name will include the first name and any other names in full.  If you avoid using double inverted commas, then you can enter the names in any order - e.g. John Dalton or Dalton, John - and you will get the same results.

Place of Association.  This needs to be a town/city or a country.  There is no pick list for this field because it links to two fields in the database.  You should take into account the geographical focus of the Museum's collections.  The majority of items in the collections have some kind of association with the area now known as Greater Manchester and, in particular, the city of Manchester.  Therefore, if you enter Manchester in this field and leave other fields blank, you will get a lot of matches.  Conversely, if you are interested in associations with places outside the United Kingdom, there are likely to be relatively few matches with any town or city, so entering the country name might be more useful.

Earliest Date of Association, Latest Date of Association, Date of Association. Dates entered in the Earliest Date and Latest Date fields must follow a numerical format, such as a four-digit year ('yyyy') or a date ('d' or 'dd'/'m' or 'mm'/'yyyy').  You can also enter a date range: for example, the date range 1930-1939 would be expressed as '>1930 <1939'.  As the 'Earliest' and 'Latest' elements refer to the date range for an individual item, you can only be sure of finding all items that might fall in a date range by entering the date range in both fields.  The other Date of Association field allows dates to be recorded in a non-numerical format, such as medieval or Victorian.  However, MSIM does not use non-numerical dates, so this field is mainly used to hold a midpoint date, in cases where there is date range for an item.     

Current Location.  This refers to where the item is held in the Museum.  This information is mainly of value to Museum visitors who want to find out more information about items that they have seen during their visit.  However, as the Museum's galleries are themed, entering a gallery name in this field can provide a useful introduction to collections relating to a particular industry or subject.  You can find information about where collections relating to different themes are displayed in the 'Find it in MoSI at' links on the Explore MoSI pages.