We shoot for a complete inventory of collections about every 10 years. Since we have several storage rooms we rotate the inventory schedule to make the complete inventory effort more manageable. For instance, we may do one space one year, and then another one the next year. That way the whole collection will be inventoried together, although the effort takes a few years to actually complete. It makes inventory an almost constant task, as by the time we finish the round we have a few years before we need to start it over again.
Just to clarify, when I say a complete inventory I mean an inventory of everything in the room, verifying the catalogue numbers and storage locations against the physical numbers on objects, hang tags/ mounts, shelf level inventory sheets, the database and their catalogue cards. Since we have a well catalogued collection, we go from the records, verifying everything that should be somewhere is actually there. I will track missing objects on a spreadsheet and will update the sheet as they are found. At the end of the process, I will usually have a few truly missing objects that will be updated as such in the database--since we are confident at that point that they are definitely not in the room since we looked at every object.
We also conduct smaller periodic inventories on a more-or-less as needed basis. If storage areas become problematic, or their inventories become inaccurate then we will do spot inventories to correct the spaces when needed.
Hope that helps!
-Krista
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Josh Jordan
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 3:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Inventory
We are reviewing the inventory portion of our collections policy. We are wondering how often museums inventory their collection. If museums do not inventory, why not? Brief feedback on processes and basic procedures would be helpful (selecting what to inventory, time frames, and so on). Thanks!
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