Hi Rob,

At the MFA in Boston, only the conservation staff in our six labs, and our collection management staff create conservation records. Curatorial staff, the registrars, and administration have read-only access to the conservation section.

When we converted to TMS about 5.5 years ago, there were about 10,000 electronic (mostly in Word) conservation reports. Conservation records were created for these by hand, and the reports were copied and pasted into the corresponding conservation record.

In the past few years we have been linking conservation images to specific conservation line items. Today we have about 23,000 images linked and more are being added all the time. Each lab is responsible for completing the Excel spreadsheet that we use to assure that the image is linked to the correct object record, the correct report (by date) and the correct line item. Our programmer created a special “image-extractor” plug-in for use only by conservation and collections management staff. This makes it possible for them to download their images but prevents conservation images from being copied and used by non-conservation staff.

One lab has a work-study student scanning old conservation reports. These will be linked as media to conservation records that she has created. Other work-study students have been busy scanning conservation slides and other non-digital media that will be linked to older reports.

Our Crystal Report writer has created 61 reports that are available in the report area of the conservation section that are used to support various procedures (accessioning, deaccessioning, loans, exhibitions, etc.).

If you are ever in the Boston area and would like to see any of this, we’d be happy to meet with you.

Linda Pulliam

Head of Collections Management

-----Original Message-----
From: The Museum System (TMS) Users [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rob Morgan
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 4:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Conservation

Hello TMSers,

Does anyone use the conservation section of TMS?  Is so, who on staff enters this information?  Conservators, registrars, curators? 

Thanks,
Rob Morgan
Collections Database Administrator
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD  21211
[log in to unmask]
410-396-6489 (phone)
410-396-6562 (fax)