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