Hello everyone,
 
We will be starting a new collection inventory in the fall and are
trying to figure out how much information to record the first time
through. We have been given money for a 1.5 year project to inventory
approximately 1.2 million objects in our collections to figure out what
we have, record basic condition of objects, and to do measurements of
objects (none of this is currently done for our collection). The outcome
of this project will be us writing a grant or two to secure funding to
rehouse the collection out of old wooden cabinets and hopefully into
nice metal cabinets, rolled storage, shelving or whatever else we might
need.  The collection is rather large and I am going to have to rely on
student help for the project.
 
Given the time constraints I have for this project, I honestly do not
think I can fill out a complete condition report for each object so I am
trying to figure out what the most critical information would likely be
to be able to get enough information to get a better understanding of
our collection and also to write the grants in a couple of years.
 
Has anyone else gone through this and have a good idea of what to
record?  Would you do it on paper and then add the information into a
computer database later (we currently do not have a complete database of
our collections but we do have a system in place)? 
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.
 
Best,
Karen O'Brien
Collection Manager
Museum of Anthropology
University of Michigan

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