Researchers have shown great interest in describing resources in the digital environment. Many have reported their findings in specific case studies, including Lunin's "Analyzing art objects for an image database" (Lunin, 1994) and Kenderdine's study of a virtual maritime museum (Kenderdine, 1996). Record structure of document and document-like objects received extensive discussion in the Winter 1997 issue of Library Trends. In a comparison between museum objects and bibliographical materials, Will (1997) finds that museum objects often carry no wording at all. Museum objects usually offer nothing comparable to the author and title of a published work. As a result, the cataloger is unable to transcribe anything from the source. Information about what an object is called, what it is for, when and by whom it was made, all must come from external sources - either the documentation which accompanies the object, separate reference works, other experts, or the individual cataloger's personal knowledge. Information needed to catalog historical fashion items usually comes from a museum's accession records, documents accompanying a donation to a museum, such as the donor's handwritten correspondence, or from exhibition notes that the museum staff generate. The fashion item itself and data pieces attached to it (such as a tag and accessories) also provide hints for description. Usually, no other recorded or printed sources for the description exist.
In a discussion of access to nonbook materials, Svenonius (1994) analyzed the limits of subject indexing for visual and aural languages. She pointed out that "to say that 'the medium is the message' is to assert that the form in which a message is conveyed is inseparable from its content" (p.600). Fashion and fashion objects are often a reflection of cultural change, public values, and artistic expression. Properly displayed examples of historic dress give viewers an immediate sense of the personal parameters of an historic period. For example, the 1820-1920 American Fashion collection from the KSU Museum illustrates clothing worn during America's most expansive period of social and political development. A successful display presents a series of images detailing the adoption of fashion that relates the evolution of American society. The collection also helps explain the transmission of fashion ideas and new clothing styles, identify fashion trends as well as examine representative fashions, and trace the influence of cultures (DuMont & Druesedow, 1997).
Because of the nature of fashion objects and their social and historical significance, each object usually had the following characteristics: