Open Forum

I've seen this query before with no solution, so I'm going to put it out there again. Does anyone have a software or online- based system for cataloging temporary exhibit asset information besides excel? We want a spreadsheet like application that allows for an image thumbnail view, includes categories - dimensions, copyright, provenance et al and that we can create subcategories so when final artifact selection is made we'll be left with two lists, original and final. It also needs to accommodate items on loan and use of images from outside sources. A CMS seems to cumbersome, excel to puny. 

We can't afford a DAM, but there must be some kind of workable systems. Help!

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------

Hi Alice, 
Good question. And to be completely unhelpful, I've got a few more questions. 
1) What software are you using for the permanent collection (TMS, KE-EMu, PastPerfect, etc?)
2) Who manages the information entry and data standards for the database? 

I have two solutions that may or may not be what you're after. 

First, I created a sample GoogleForm. This is a more user-friendly way to collect information than an Excel sheet, at least in my mind. What you don't see because I'm the creator of the form is the "Download responses as CSV" option in the creator side. You can also rearrange the questions, restrict responses to just numbers, just text, yes/no boxes, etc. This will generate the spreadsheet-like interface for you, but the image thing I haven't sorted yet- I'm sure there's an add on to allow you to have an "image upload" field, but I just didn't have time to seek it out and add it. (PS, if you want this form for your own, just send me a message and I'll transfer ownership/editorship to you, but it was just a rough draft that I whipped up). There's also the fact that it's cloud based, and anyone with the URL can add to it (so curators, registrars, whoever else is working on the exhibit. 

Second, and probably less agile, is using something like eHive. It's free up to a certain level, and will do all of the things you want- images, provenance, measurements, etc. But it is basically another CMS to learn, even if it is online. It doesn't work well on mobile (it will work, it just look terrible because it is not responsive, so it is super hard to fill in). The reporting tools are not what I'd like them to be, but if you need something quick and dirty to keep track of what you've got, it's there, and it's cheap, and it is pretty easy to work with, so just about anyone who can type in a field can work with it. I used this in a "non collecting" museum I worked at that had a collection, but didn't have the thousands of dollars to shell out for one of the big boys of the museum world (that's a rant for another day). To share with everyone, you'd basically just have a common login/password, which is dangerous in many ways. 

I have a third idea, but I'm going to wait to hear what collections management software you're using before suggesting it, because it's kind of a long shot. 

Cheers,
Tracey 


-------------------------------------------
Tracey Berg-Fulton
Collections Database Associate
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh PA
-------------------------------------------

Excellent Questions Tracey!

We use MIMSY as our CMS. From a data entry point only two people are allowed to edit and neither of them work on exhibits directly. Right now our,very rudimentary, system goes like this - 

A thumbnail image is uploaded to an excel document and inserted into a cell. On the same row other information is included in the form - owner, project topic, subcategory, title, date, dimensions, source, location info, owner, copyright , notes, area of potential use in the exhibit. The problems are photos don't stay put, you can only include low-res photos (that's ok) but the whole document is slow to process. Also, it's hard to create sub-lists, or pruned down lists, that could then be sent to our registrars for rights processing, exhibit mounting. The curator designed a very comp. system for rights approval that includes highlighting rows in colors as their status changes. 

I've looked into ehive, but you can't export your list with images into an excel or xml/cva list so that we could have a back-up if we stop using the program. Our associate curator wants to try Collective Access, but I'm loath to start using a program that requires so much service space and is basically a full scale CMS. What we need is a DAM lite system. 

Alice

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 10:03 AM
From: Tracey Berg-Fulton
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Hi Alice, 
Good question. And to be completely unhelpful, I've got a few more questions. 
1) What software are you using for the permanent collection (TMS, KE-EMu, PastPerfect, etc?)
2) Who manages the information entry and data standards for the database? 

I have two solutions that may or may not be what you're after. 

First, I created a sample GoogleForm. This is a more user-friendly way to collect information than an Excel sheet, at least in my mind. What you don't see because I'm the creator of the form is the "Download responses as CSV" option in the creator side. You can also rearrange the questions, restrict responses to just numbers, just text, yes/no boxes, etc. This will generate the spreadsheet-like interface for you, but the image thing I haven't sorted yet- I'm sure there's an add on to allow you to have an "image upload" field, but I just didn't have time to seek it out and add it. (PS, if you want this form for your own, just send me a message and I'll transfer ownership/editorship to you, but it was just a rough draft that I whipped up). There's also the fact that it's cloud based, and anyone with the URL can add to it (so curators, registrars, whoever else is working on the exhibit. 

Second, and probably less agile, is using something like eHive. It's free up to a certain level, and will do all of the things you want- images, provenance, measurements, etc. But it is basically another CMS to learn, even if it is online. It doesn't work well on mobile (it will work, it just look terrible because it is not responsive, so it is super hard to fill in). The reporting tools are not what I'd like them to be, but if you need something quick and dirty to keep track of what you've got, it's there, and it's cheap, and it is pretty easy to work with, so just about anyone who can type in a field can work with it. I used this in a "non collecting" museum I worked at that had a collection, but didn't have the thousands of dollars to shell out for one of the big boys of the museum world (that's a rant for another day). To share with everyone, you'd basically just have a common login/password, which is dangerous in many ways. 

I have a third idea, but I'm going to wait to hear what collections management software you're using before suggesting it, because it's kind of a long shot. 

Cheers,
Tracey 


-------------------------------------------
Tracey Berg-Fulton
Collections Database Associate
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh PA
-------------------------------------------

Hello Alice - 

We use MIMSY as our Collection Management System as well.  Currently we have it set up into 2 distinct partitions so the permanent collection is available to the curatorial team and the corporate art loan team can manage their works separately.  No one ever sees both collections under the same log in.  Perhaps you could create a second collection in MIMSY for temporary exhibits and keep the log ins separate?



-------------------------------------------
Jennifer Schmitt
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Lincoln MA
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 12:07 PM
From: Alice Rubin
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Excellent Questions Tracey!

We use MIMSY as our CMS. From a data entry point only two people are allowed to edit and neither of them work on exhibits directly. Right now our,very rudimentary, system goes like this - 

A thumbnail image is uploaded to an excel document and inserted into a cell. On the same row other information is included in the form - owner, project topic, subcategory, title, date, dimensions, source, location info, owner, copyright , notes, area of potential use in the exhibit. The problems are photos don't stay put, you can only include low-res photos (that's ok) but the whole document is slow to process. Also, it's hard to create sub-lists, or pruned down lists, that could then be sent to our registrars for rights processing, exhibit mounting. The curator designed a very comp. system for rights approval that includes highlighting rows in colors as their status changes. 

I've looked into ehive, but you can't export your list with images into an excel or xml/cva list so that we could have a back-up if we stop using the program. Our associate curator wants to try Collective Access, but I'm loath to start using a program that requires so much service space and is basically a full scale CMS. What we need is a DAM lite system. 

Alice

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 10:03 AM
From: Tracey Berg-Fulton
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Hi Alice, 
Good question. And to be completely unhelpful, I've got a few more questions. 
1) What software are you using for the permanent collection (TMS, KE-EMu, PastPerfect, etc?)
2) Who manages the information entry and data standards for the database? 

I have two solutions that may or may not be what you're after. 

First, I created a sample GoogleForm. This is a more user-friendly way to collect information than an Excel sheet, at least in my mind. What you don't see because I'm the creator of the form is the "Download responses as CSV" option in the creator side. You can also rearrange the questions, restrict responses to just numbers, just text, yes/no boxes, etc. This will generate the spreadsheet-like interface for you, but the image thing I haven't sorted yet- I'm sure there's an add on to allow you to have an "image upload" field, but I just didn't have time to seek it out and add it. (PS, if you want this form for your own, just send me a message and I'll transfer ownership/editorship to you, but it was just a rough draft that I whipped up). There's also the fact that it's cloud based, and anyone with the URL can add to it (so curators, registrars, whoever else is working on the exhibit. 

Second, and probably less agile, is using something like eHive. It's free up to a certain level, and will do all of the things you want- images, provenance, measurements, etc. But it is basically another CMS to learn, even if it is online. It doesn't work well on mobile (it will work, it just look terrible because it is not responsive, so it is super hard to fill in). The reporting tools are not what I'd like them to be, but if you need something quick and dirty to keep track of what you've got, it's there, and it's cheap, and it is pretty easy to work with, so just about anyone who can type in a field can work with it. I used this in a "non collecting" museum I worked at that had a collection, but didn't have the thousands of dollars to shell out for one of the big boys of the museum world (that's a rant for another day). To share with everyone, you'd basically just have a common login/password, which is dangerous in many ways. 

I have a third idea, but I'm going to wait to hear what collections management software you're using before suggesting it, because it's kind of a long shot. 

Cheers,
Tracey 


-------------------------------------------
Tracey Berg-Fulton
Collections Database Associate
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh PA
-------------------------------------------

Really interesting idea. I'll look into it. Many thanks!

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-12-2014 01:43 PM
From: Jennifer Schmitt
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets


Hello Alice - 

We use MIMSY as our Collection Management System as well.  Currently we have it set up into 2 distinct partitions so the permanent collection is available to the curatorial team and the corporate art loan team can manage their works separately.  No one ever sees both collections under the same log in.  Perhaps you could create a second collection in MIMSY for temporary exhibits and keep the log ins separate?



-------------------------------------------
Jennifer Schmitt
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Lincoln MA
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 12:07 PM
From: Alice Rubin
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Excellent Questions Tracey!

We use MIMSY as our CMS. From a data entry point only two people are allowed to edit and neither of them work on exhibits directly. Right now our,very rudimentary, system goes like this - 

A thumbnail image is uploaded to an excel document and inserted into a cell. On the same row other information is included in the form - owner, project topic, subcategory, title, date, dimensions, source, location info, owner, copyright , notes, area of potential use in the exhibit. The problems are photos don't stay put, you can only include low-res photos (that's ok) but the whole document is slow to process. Also, it's hard to create sub-lists, or pruned down lists, that could then be sent to our registrars for rights processing, exhibit mounting. The curator designed a very comp. system for rights approval that includes highlighting rows in colors as their status changes. 

I've looked into ehive, but you can't export your list with images into an excel or xml/cva list so that we could have a back-up if we stop using the program. Our associate curator wants to try Collective Access, but I'm loath to start using a program that requires so much service space and is basically a full scale CMS. What we need is a DAM lite system. 

Alice

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 10:03 AM
From: Tracey Berg-Fulton
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Hi Alice, 
Good question. And to be completely unhelpful, I've got a few more questions. 
1) What software are you using for the permanent collection (TMS, KE-EMu, PastPerfect, etc?)
2) Who manages the information entry and data standards for the database? 

I have two solutions that may or may not be what you're after. 

First, I created a sample GoogleForm. This is a more user-friendly way to collect information than an Excel sheet, at least in my mind. What you don't see because I'm the creator of the form is the "Download responses as CSV" option in the creator side. You can also rearrange the questions, restrict responses to just numbers, just text, yes/no boxes, etc. This will generate the spreadsheet-like interface for you, but the image thing I haven't sorted yet- I'm sure there's an add on to allow you to have an "image upload" field, but I just didn't have time to seek it out and add it. (PS, if you want this form for your own, just send me a message and I'll transfer ownership/editorship to you, but it was just a rough draft that I whipped up). There's also the fact that it's cloud based, and anyone with the URL can add to it (so curators, registrars, whoever else is working on the exhibit. 

Second, and probably less agile, is using something like eHive. It's free up to a certain level, and will do all of the things you want- images, provenance, measurements, etc. But it is basically another CMS to learn, even if it is online. It doesn't work well on mobile (it will work, it just look terrible because it is not responsive, so it is super hard to fill in). The reporting tools are not what I'd like them to be, but if you need something quick and dirty to keep track of what you've got, it's there, and it's cheap, and it is pretty easy to work with, so just about anyone who can type in a field can work with it. I used this in a "non collecting" museum I worked at that had a collection, but didn't have the thousands of dollars to shell out for one of the big boys of the museum world (that's a rant for another day). To share with everyone, you'd basically just have a common login/password, which is dangerous in many ways. 

I have a third idea, but I'm going to wait to hear what collections management software you're using before suggesting it, because it's kind of a long shot. 

Cheers,
Tracey 


-------------------------------------------
Tracey Berg-Fulton
Collections Database Associate
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh PA
-------------------------------------------

In excel, you can anchor photos and they will stay in the cell that you have placed them in, even if you filter the list. When inserting the image initially make sure that the edges of the image don't touch the edges of the cell. To re-size an image so that it doesn't get warped out of shape hold down the Shift button when you are minimizing or enlarging it.

To anchor the photos in Excel - right click on the photo, click Size and Properties. The box below comes up, click on the Properties tab then chose the first option "Move and size with cells". To do this to multiple photos quickly don't click on Close, just click on the next photo and select "Move and size with cells" again and continue on down photo by photo. By doing this you will also be able to filter without the images jumbling up together - they will stay locked in their proper cell

-------------------------------------------
Sarah Smith
Collections Specialist
City of Ottawa: Shared Museum Resources
Ottawa ON
-------------------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 12:07 PM
From: Alice Rubin
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Excellent Questions Tracey!

We use MIMSY as our CMS. From a data entry point only two people are allowed to edit and neither of them work on exhibits directly. Right now our,very rudimentary, system goes like this - 

A thumbnail image is uploaded to an excel document and inserted into a cell. On the same row other information is included in the form - owner, project topic, subcategory, title, date, dimensions, source, location info, owner, copyright , notes, area of potential use in the exhibit. The problems are photos don't stay put, you can only include low-res photos (that's ok) but the whole document is slow to process. Also, it's hard to create sub-lists, or pruned down lists, that could then be sent to our registrars for rights processing, exhibit mounting. The curator designed a very comp. system for rights approval that includes highlighting rows in colors as their status changes. 

I've looked into ehive, but you can't export your list with images into an excel or xml/cva list so that we could have a back-up if we stop using the program. Our associate curator wants to try Collective Access, but I'm loath to start using a program that requires so much service space and is basically a full scale CMS. What we need is a DAM lite system. 

Alice

-------------------------------------------
Alice Rubin
Senior Manager - Digital Media
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York NY
-------------------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2014 10:03 AM
From: Tracey Berg-Fulton
Subject: Managing Temporary Exhibit Assets

Hi Alice, 
Good question. And to be completely unhelpful, I've got a few more questions. 
1) What software are you using for the permanent collection (TMS, KE-EMu, PastPerfect, etc?)
2) Who manages the information entry and data standards for the database? 

I have two solutions that may or may not be what you're after. 

First, I created a sample GoogleForm. This is a more user-friendly way to collect information than an Excel sheet, at least in my mind. What you don't see because I'm the creator of the form is the "Download responses as CSV" option in the creator side. You can also rearrange the questions, restrict responses to just numbers, just text, yes/no boxes, etc. This will generate the spreadsheet-like interface for you, but the image thing I haven't sorted yet- I'm sure there's an add on to allow you to have an "image upload" field, but I just didn't have time to seek it out and add it. (PS, if you want this form for your own, just send me a message and I'll transfer ownership/editorship to you, but it was just a rough draft that I whipped up). There's also the fact that it's cloud based, and anyone with the URL can add to it (so curators, registrars, whoever else is working on the exhibit. 

Second, and probably less agile, is using something like eHive. It's free up to a certain level, and will do all of the things you want- images, provenance, measurements, etc. But it is basically another CMS to learn, even if it is online. It doesn't work well on mobile (it will work, it just look terrible because it is not responsive, so it is super hard to fill in). The reporting tools are not what I'd like them to be, but if you need something quick and dirty to keep track of what you've got, it's there, and it's cheap, and it is pretty easy to work with, so just about anyone who can type in a field can work with it. I used this in a "non collecting" museum I worked at that had a collection, but didn't have the thousands of dollars to shell out for one of the big boys of the museum world (that's a rant for another day). To share with everyone, you'd basically just have a common login/password, which is dangerous in many ways. 

I have a third idea, but I'm going to wait to hear what collections management software you're using before suggesting it, because it's kind of a long shot. 

Cheers,
Tracey 


-------------------------------------------
Tracey Berg-Fulton
Collections Database Associate
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh PA
-------------------------------------------