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Hi, everyone,

I agree with Karl and Melissa with regard to larger collections (500 objects maximum). Nevertheless in the museum (and library) world there is still a strong emotional binding towards cards - some also went that far to say that the card system is the one and only scientific approach. :-)

Nevertheless, catalogue cards as research tool are obsolete since about two decennia (at least because cards allow - even with the cross-references system - only a very limited access to your data, but there are many other reasons), but every "digital documentarist" should keep somewhere a paper copy in a fire-safe area, saving with a duplicate any (!) change of data. Not all museum documentation systems store the history of changes with ref. to the respective professional (I saw also museums, by the way, where alll users used the same password!), the simplier programs just delete and overwrite the old entries...

According to my personal experience, for paper copies there are no standards. Each museum has its own rules - if paper copies of documentation are to be stored or not and if, what is allowed and what is forbidden. F.e., some keep only a copy of the last change, some all changes. This is also a matter of "rights" (who has access to the paper copies?).

But in contrary to the documentation process where you can (and should!) change data including inventory numbers, museum accession data are very often kept in real books ("journals") because the accession data are a matter a legal concern and - as a document - not to be changed. Some software programs offer for this process also digital storage (No changes possible after saving to disk) but the printed result is only a piece of paper, not a book with numbered pages. And this makes quite a difference.

Some museums have transformed their analog card information into stored picture files because they contain text information which could not be digitized (old handwritten entries, f.e.).
In other cases the old card system is kept because the content was not digitized in full. I have seen some fully digitized and documented museums (yes, there are some...) which store their cards still properly just "in case of".

Taken all stages of accession and documentation into account, I do not see the paperfree office for museums. The "paperfree office" is probably nothing but a marketing gag of the computer industry.

Best

Christian

Am 08.08.2012 19:22, schrieb Cass Karl:

I agree with Milissa that it is necessary to keep some sort of paper copy of all your records, but catalog cards as a search tool are obsolete, IMO. -Casandra On 8/8/12, Milissa Brooks-Ojibway <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

We discontinued our card catalog system in the mid-1990's and haven't looked back since, though we do have copies of all the cards in hard-copy working files for each accession number, because on the rare occasion information was on the cards that was not in any other source such as our accession journals, etc. I then had an intern or myself go through each of those files and add all relevant information or provenance to the database so it would be easily searchable. For what it's worth, on a personal level, I mourned the loss of card catalogs initially in libraries and museums, but it was purely a sentimental response to an old yet faithful system. I found that it was truly redundant to keep the card catalog system, but I will add that I have a hard copy of each accession sheet generated by the database even though we back up to three different places. I trust something on paper ultimately better than I do the electronic versions, but I depend on the electronic version 99% of the time on a day to day basis. Milissa Brooks-Ojibway St. Louis County Historical Society and Lake Superior Railroad Museum 506 West Michigan Street Duluth, MN 55802 (218) 733-7583 (218) 733-7549 (Fridays only) [log in to unmask] On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Joshua K. Blay <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

In our institution we have continued to maintain catalog cards for our museum collection after entering all items into database. We keep two copies, one is filed by object number, the other by category according to the Chenhall system. As database information is updated, we print updated cards which need to be filed, a labor intensive process. We regularly backup the database and we have multiple terminals. I was curious how many institutions have discontinued their cards in favor of the computer database? Joshua K. Blay Historical Society of Berks County ==============================**=========================== Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/** museum-l-faq/ <http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/> . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).

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