Hi Carrie,

We have a similar sized collection (roughly 37,000), and developed a plan to roll out records incrementally as data was reviewed and cleaned up.

We launched eMusuem in 2012 with about 2,000 records "live".  We wanted to be sure that there was a good amount of content to get the public interested in what we had.

Following the launch, I was charged with developing a working group of curators, conservators, and education staff to determine which fields were required in order to share a record with the public.  Curators and the Registrars had permissions to check off public access only.  

Required Fields:
Artist/Creator/Culture
Title
Date (if not populated, rough century or n.d.)
Medium
Credit Line

Optional:
Image
Dimensions

If any required field was empty and could not be populated, the record is skipped until further research can be completed. 

The rationale for the optional images was that if a work didn't have an image, but the basic descriptors, it might spur requests for photography from the public and staff, which it has.  We are doing a full inventory of the collection, and objects with incomplete or missing dimensions are now getting that input into the database.  We figured that the public would rather want to know what an object is made of before wanting to know how big it was. We haven't had any push back about this decision.

Since these guidelines were established, 5 years on, we have published 80% of the collection online.  This is by no means a perfect system.  I periodically review "public access" records to ensure that records weren't published with missing required data.  For the most part there aren't many issues. 

Our overall drive was to share the collection in its purest, skeletal state, to present a broad picture.  Then, once everything is live, we will reconvene to decide which fields (and Modules) we want to publish to the public to provide more context and depth of knowledge of the holdings. 

What I found useful in terms of my own workflow, was to create an object package with a saved query of "Object Cataloguing Public Access = No".  Then as records were cleaned up and published, I would pare down the package slowly but surely.  18k records are now down to 5k. 

Hope this helps! Happy to chat about this further. 

Best Regards,
Sarah L. Gillis assistant registrar, image management

WORCESTER ART MUSEUM 
55 Salisbury St. / Worcester, MA 01609
508.793.4427  /  worcesterart.org


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-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carrie Hadley
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: eMuseum users

Hi everyone! 

My institution recently began using TMS, and we are on track to purchase eMuseum this fall, with the goal of having a small selection of records online by winter/early spring. Our collection contains roughly 40,000 records, many of which need cleaned-up data or photographs (or both!) before they go online, so we are trying to plan logistically how to accomplish this.

We would appreciate to hear the experiences of others who use eMuseum. How did your institution prepare records to go online? Who on your staff is responsible for reviewing and adding new records? What went into the design and function of your eMuseum site? Was there anything you wish you knew ahead of time? We switched from using Past Perfect, so any perspectives on moving from Past Perfect to TMS is appreciated as well. Feel free to contact me off list!

Thanks in advance!

Carrie Hadley
Collections Associate
Senator John Heinz History Center
[log in to unmask] 
412-454-6366

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