Integrating Museum and Archival Collections

[Anne LeVant Prahl]

If anyone is willing, I'd like to continue discussing the intersection of museum collections and archival ones. My training is in museum studies and it has taken me years to wrap my mind around accessioning archival collections and not treating them like objects.

Now I have come 180° around and I see our small Collection as being primarily a Special Collection archives with supporting 3D objects. Of course we do have works of art and some Judaica that stand alone as artifacts, but the majority of the object collection supports existing archival collections.

Being a database fan, I now want to fully integrate my database so that, when I am looking at an archival record, I have access to every object, photograph, oral history interview, video tape or library book that is related to it. Has anyone else approached this kind of collection integration? Anyone want to weigh in on caveats, pitfalls, or potentials? Are there any articles that I should be reading?

Anne

[Lou]

Yes, this is my issue. I logged on so that I could tap the wisdom of the group but maybe we can work this in with your issue. My current problem is that I my institution wants to digitize pages of books. In archives, this would be called volume one and its location would be box 1, folder 1. A researcher would look through the book and make copies of the pages they want and I would put the book back. Now I am going to have hundreds of digital images for about 20 books. The line between archives and object has been erased. Luckily, at my interview I made clear that I was kind of shaky about this brave new digital world, so I have some leeway in finding out what to do. The registrar uses TMS, but she is not too thrilled with having me use it to store my images. I don't know what to say to the company we are going to contract with when they ask about directories...Ay yi, yi. So, should I create a normal access database, empty and then when the images come in upload them. Frankly, I don't even know how to phrase this question. Hoping for clear and usable replys. Laura

[Renée]

I'm with you both in this. I am starting a program from scratch at a public library which has been collecting LOTS of different stuff since before the Civil War. I've been here over a year now, but I'm still trying to decide how best to catalog and manage the collections. I started with an Access database, but no one else could stand using it, which will not work. As of now I have Excel spreadsheets going, only because I think you can import those pretty easily to other systems. I've been messing around with Archivists Toolkit for a while, because it was *free*, but I'm not sure about it yet. What is awesome about it is that it is pretty easy to create your own object types, etc. so you can create item level records for whatever kind of things you have. And you don't even have to be a serious techie to do so. I'm unclear about linking different kinds of files (like audio and photograph/video) but it might be possible.

The problem is that I don't think we can treat artifactual and archival collections the same way, but patrons want to have one access point to search collections, which is understandable. And most patrons (who are not hardcore researchers) find "archival" arrangement weird and confusing, so shouldn't we be creating records based on the patrons' needs rather than our own? Maybe these problems only pertain to those of us in non-academic settings, I don't know. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[Anne LeVant Prahl]

I agree, Renee, with several of your points. FIrst, patrons (and museum directors) want one access point. The whole idea of cataloging confuses them. Second, we cannot treat all collections the same way.

I am writing a FileMaker database. It is super easy to write in and you can make it very very user-friendly. If you haven't tried, I highly recommend it. Way better than Access. My scheme is to have separate tables for each area of the collection, each with the appropriate fields for cataloging that type of item (i.e. the Library table has a modified Dewey Decimal system, the Archives has DACS fields and thesaurus, the Objects table has standard history museum fields. There is also a separate table for photographs (not all of them are scanned, but there is a field to show the .jpg if one exists), for Oral History Interviews, and for incoming loans. I have linked each of these tables to the Accessions table and now I am carefully trying to figure out how to also link them to each other. (for example, if an Oral History interview is part of an individual's archival collection, but he spends half an hour talking about an organization for which I also have a collection, I want that oral history to show up when I open either Archive Record. That seems so vital to understanding the scope of my collection. I haven't figured out all of the details yet. That's why I want to keep the conversation going while I am tinkering.
Anne

[EddieBud]

In my project we are striving for item level access. Another great benefit of Archon is that a user searching the database can pull up items from within the container or box list. So that searching across collections, the user can pluck out items from within each collection, which are presented in a results set or list. Another great feature of Archon is that it has a digital library module or component. The digital surrogates can be uploaded into Archon or the DL record can point to the URL of the digital object. (We have not used it for such, but Archon is suppose to be able to accommodate audio and video files.)

Ultimately, I plan on digitizing every photograph in our collection. Additionally, I intend to selectively upload digital images of unique three dimensional items. The plan is that, even though Archon will accomidate digital objects, we are going to store our digital images in DigiTool database. In this way we intend to link the Archon record to the DigiTool record with the digital image. The rationale for utilizing these two databases is that DigiTool appears to be better suited for photographic images. (We will be uploading JPEG 2000, which, it is my understanding, is much more flexible for +/- zooming, etc. Trust me I am not quite sure what I am talking about when it comes to jp2.) In DigiTool the images will be broken down by collection so that users can browse by collection, or search across collections. The digital library component of Archon will be utilized for storing the images of the three dimensional objects. My take on this is that the images of the three dimensional items are only suppose to provide a digital representation of what the item is.

Am I making sense here? The basic breakdown (for me) is: when quality matters, the images will be scanned and stored in DigiTool. When only a digital representation is warranted, the image (probably photographed by me) will be stored and accessible in Archon. Archon will have a record of all of the items within the collection. The photographs in the collection will be linked to the DigiTool record.

I hope this has been helpful (and not as confusing as I think it may have turned out). Let me knwo where my explanation breaks down.

[Anne LeVant Prahl]

Thanks Eddie, no, you were not confusing at all. I don't know either program. I will look into both Archon and DigiTool. I want to know what kind of features people are finding useful as I create my system. I DO know that, when I photographed objects myself and put them into my database (granted there were nearly 1000 of them) it very much slowed down the system. They were tiny little 72 dpi .jpgs, just reference shots of my objects, and it made loading every screen go like molasses. I'm all for referencing a URL. That is what I have moved to, although I am having a little bit of trouble getting those referenced images to scale to the size of the window I want them in. Just don't have time to play with it.

I love the idea of being able to search the box and container lists. That would certainly bring up both 3D objects and any documents that were highlighted. More food for thought. Thanks, Anne

[Jim Reed]

At my institution (a history museum) we use PastPerfect, a collections management software marketed by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). It's quite inexpensive, and has components for objects, photographs, archives, and library. Since it was designed primarily by and for museum people, I found it somewhat counterintuitive at first (everything links to a donor record), but once I adjusted to it (my background is in library/archives), I find it quite useful for any type of material with which I may be confronted.
And the PastPerfect folks are friendly, helpful, and open to suggestions for changes & improvements.
-Jim

[Anne LeVant Prahl]

Thanks, Jim,
I'm not really shopping for software, my curiosity is about integration. I know PastPerfect a bit, and I don't think they can do what I'm talking about. I'm wondering how you connect objects in your artifact collection to collections in your archival holdings. Do you have to search both tables to see if you have someone's military medals as well as their personal papers? And what if some of those personal papers reference a club that you also have holdings for? Can you connect those two archival records?

[Michael Nagy]

I agree with Jim. We use PastPerfect too. Technically we are a museum, but we have precious few objects, mostly photos, av, publications, and documents. Each item record for an accession links off its accession record. (And each accession by a transferring office or individual donor links through a Contact record.) There is multilevel linking of records in the archives catalog, so one could do a collection level record for everything, then a series record, subseries, items, etc. Or if you don't care for the levels, you can just catalog the papers as archives, artifacts as objects, and so on. Each catalog has generally accepted fields - probably many more than we will ever use. And each has multimedia capabilities - so if you want scanned photos, pages, a-v, kept in the archival folders and not separated, you can do that too. One field is called Related in which you can link records not in the same accession, but related by subject, across the 4 catalogs with a narrative about the relation. This greatly aids research. Also there is search tool that looks across all four catalogs at the same time. I am in heaven compared to the homegrown foolishness that we were doing before this program. Its not free. But the tech help is good and it is less expensive than some of the deadends we've gone down. Pastperfect is built on Visual Foxpro so if one is a dbase expert something similar could be done in house - but I'm not and never will be and neither will our IT folks.

[Barbara Austen]

This is indeed an interesting discussion. Our institution recently (October) reorganized the museum and library departments into one collections department, with the ultimate goal of providing "one stop shopping" access to all collections. We are going to be relying on personal (staff) knowledge to make this work, because when we automated the card catalog for books and archives, there was no way we could get that database (Voyager and OCLC) to talk to the one used by the museum (TMS) and there is no plan to change or integrate them in the foreseeable future. Former museum and library staff (now research center staff) are being cross trained in each other's collections, databases, and finding aids. It has been very slow going, but we all had good working relationships before the merge and have been able to call on each other when we have trouble finding things. The biggest challenge has been "training" the curators who are now running the library. (The library director left in September and was not replaced.)

Barbara

[Anne LeVant Prahl]

Wow, Barbara, that sounds like a huge change. I feel for a curator who suddenly finds him/herself directing a library. I hope yours is a person who is willing to ask questions.
I recently had the opportunity to tour a mid-sized museum in another city. The situation there seemed to be that the archivist and collections manager had absolutely nothing to do with one another, and the librarian seemed to have even less to do with either of them. In this setting, there were 3D objects in the archival collections (when they came it with collections, they just stayed there) and there were documents in the object collection. There were cases when the same family's items were in both places, but a researcher would never know it f they didn't know to go ask in both locations. This is the extreme of what I am looking to avoid. While our collection is still small, we can do this integration.
In your situation, could not the staff knowledge be documented in the Voyager and OCLC records (and also in the collections database? Maybe not a system-wide effort at first, but every time a book is referenced for a particular use in conjunction with archival or museum material, a note could be made in a searchable field so that next time it could be more automated (or the staff could someday retire without taking all of the connections with them).

[Barbara Austen]

Ann, we do try to make the links between collections when we can, but there is no system for managing that yet. Certainly it is something to think about. The TMS database for the museum is nowhere near complete, which is why institutional/staff memory is so important. The spirit of sharing information has grown significantly in the past few months. Perhaps we need to write another grant? Hmmm.

[Michelle Ganz]

Anne,

I have a collection that is both archives and special collections. We (like many other museums) use Past Perfect for all our 'objects'. The nice thing about this system is allows me to serach across all four of our collections (photos, archvies, library and objects) at the same time. So, I can type in a search term and it will show me all the 'hits' across the collection. At the moment it is not accessable to our patrons, but I hear that it's fairly easy to put a front end on Past Perfect that would allow user searching. In the university archives we are using Excel spread sheets to catalog our photo collection, but I have yet to figure out if I can do a corss sheet search. I think that unless you have a catloging system that allows broad searches you might have to go with the old fashined finding aid. If you take the time to build an all encluse aid for each collection that includes the cross collection items your users should be able to find things with ease.
My training is in special collections/archives, so I understand how you feel. There are a few books out there that discuss the intigration of archives and objects. They're all at home, but I'd be happy to put a list up, if you'd like.