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NUDS is a set of suggested field names for recording numismatic information in a column-oriented database. It is designed to capture information as it currently exists in databases deployed by museums and collectors in “real world” situations. It is flexible in that it can represent objects for which only very generic information is known or objects that have been described in detail. It does not mandate a set of required fields.
A main goal in the design of NUDS is that it capture the distinctive categories of numismatic data that are fundamental to the discipline. Primary among these is the distinction between obverse and reverse. It is extremely important that numismatists be able to search for the occurence of words or visual motifs on the distinct sides of coins. NUDS also recognizes that the edge of a coin often needs to be separately described. Obverse, reverse, and edge are constituent “parts” of a coin. NUDS can also represent particular concepts that are likewise important to numismatists. The concept “denomination,” whether explicitly assigned at the the time of production or identified by later scholars, applies to almost all officially issued coins. It is not a field that appears in many museum collection systems. Likewise, “axis” - or the orientation of the obverse to the reverse - is important for numismatic study but not often accounted for in non-numismatic databases.
The list that follows presents the current suggested categories of information that NUDS can record. It is not strictly a list of field names nor is it intended to serve as a fully implemented numismatic database. This is particularly the case for generic names that are likely to be repeated for a single object. For example, the list includes the entry “Geography(1,2,3)”. “Geography” provides a placeholder for uncategorized geographic information - e.g., “Attica”. The ”(1,2,3..)” indicates that in an actual database management system (DBMS), it may be necessary to append numerals to each instance of a “Geography” column so as to avoid duplicate column names. Alternately, a one-to-many relationship can be established within a relational database management system. Either representation is suitable in different contexts and both can easily be mapped to NUDS.
Finally, it is important to address two limits of NUDS as currently defined. First, NUDS is concerned with the structure of numismatic information but has not yet expanded to define the contents of fields. I.e., NUDS makes no recomendation as to how to represent the metal silver in its records. “Silver”, “argent”, “silber”,”AR”, “Ag” are all acceptable. Second, a column-oriented approach to the representation of numismatic information places limitations on the utility of data. For example, NUDS currently defines a very generic “published” field. This is a “free-text” container and it is likely that its contents will vary considerably across projects. The issue of multiple values for single concepts, such as material or geography, has already been addressed. Both of these issues could be flexibly handled by an XML schema for numismatics, a idea that has been under consideration in the numismatic community.
To facilitate conversation, nomisma.org also maintains a short list of public databases with substantial numismatic content.
Initial work on the development of NUDS was undertaken at a series of workshops in 2006-2007, funded by the AHRC in the UK.
At a minimum each record should have a unique identifier specified by the UniqueID field. Records can have many associated identifiers and NUDS provides a set of fields that allow recording of common scenarios. These are not required and in many instances the unique id will be sufficient.
A particularly common scenario is a database that describes coins held in a pre-existing collection, such as that of a museum. In this instance, the Collection and CollectionID fields should be used.
This section lists fields that describe aspects of the entire object.
Use '-' to indicate BC/BCE dates. For example ”-323” for the date 323 BCE.
The approach to undertype is currently very generic and allows for an unstructured description of the original coin. It is possible, however, to prepend “ut” to any NUDS field and so indicate that it applies to the undertype.
NUDS is not intended to include all the fields that would be found in a fully-implemented collections management system. Providing the ability to exchange such information may be useful in some circumstances. It is also likely, however, that most institutions will not share value and current location information.