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  • 1.  Past Perfect

    Posted 06-07-2021 04:25 PM
    Does anyone use PastPerfect Museum software for collection and donor management? We're looking for a software that can manage the collection, archives, library, and donor records. Any insight into PastPerfect or other softwares is appreciated, thank you!

    Lesley

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    Lesley Marchessault
    Development Officer
    Provincetown Art Association and Museum
    Provincetown MA
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  • 2.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-08-2021 08:54 AM
    Hi Lesley,

    I am glad that you wanted to learn/validate more software's.  We are a company who predominantly help Educational Institutions, publishing companies, museums/art galleries, NGOs on their digital asset management with our cost effective solutions.  

    Our software is called collectionPoint... I will send more input for you from my email id.  I will setup a demo for you, to deep dive on our software, you can take a call accordingly. 

    We are already working with WorldBank, International Monetary Fund, Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Minnesota, Yale University and many more.. 

    Thanks
    ~Geetha 


    ------------------------------
    Geetha Vijayanand MBA
    Director Client Relations
    Codemantra
    Burlington MA
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-08-2021 09:52 AM
    I would avoid PastPerfect. It's old fashioned, not intuitive, and time consuming. There are so many new web based cataloging systems out there like CatalogIt which are much better for museum's collections today.

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    Joy Bennett
    Curator and Archivist
    Hancock Historical Museum
    Findlay OH
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-08-2021 12:14 PM

    We've been using PastPerfect for many years. The first thing I will suggest is getting the support, at minimum for the first year. It will save you sooo much time & energy. And, the support is awesome!

    It is great for cataloguing your collections. It has pretty robust reports- both built in and custom.

    It is also great for donor & contact management, IF you set it up right from the start. (I expect this is true of any CMS.) Really think about how you want to contact people, especially in regards to couples and businesses.

    For instance, you decide to list a couple as separate contacts- is there ever a time when you want to contact both together- perhaps a donation solicitation? Or, you list them together as one contact; then one starts volunteering, so you just want to contact that one? And businesses- do you have the owner/manager listed as the contact, then the business changes hands; or the manage becomes a personal member? We've come up with several situations that require manual adjustments to a mailing list; which could be fixed, but require a lot of time & diligence, since we now have over 4000 contacts. Just things to consider, and ask the company about how it can be handled in the software, before you make a decision. (Again, this would be advisable for any CMS.)

    Hope that helps. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to try answering them.

     

    Kathie Hamblen, Administrator

    Sedona Heritage Museum

    Sedona Historical Society

    735 Jordan Rd.

    Sedona, AZ 86336

    928-282-7038

    www.sedonamuseum.org

    facebook find us

     




    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-08-2021 12:26 PM
    I used PP at my last job for cataloging archives (books, papers), photographs, and books per their cataloging modules. We only had one donor (Congressional Collection) so that wasn't used much.

    I'll say that PP was not very user friendly, and felt a bit clunky in it's graphic user interface. However, it was very powerful in the sense that once you learned some of the back end, you could customize it to do anything you needed it to (particularly with help from the support team at first). It wasn't cost prohibitive, and had some interesting add on features for public access/online functionality.

    Good luck!

    Marc

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    Marc Levitt MLS
    Archivist
    National Naval Aviation Museum
    NAS Pensacola FL
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-08-2021 04:00 PM
    Hi Lesley,
    Artwork Archive is an online art collection management system used to digitize, organize, manage and showcase everything pertaining to your museum -- artworks and exhibitions (permanent and temporary), documents, donor relations, etc. We've had a number of institutions switch over to us from PastPerfect because of our ease-of-use, affordability (plans start at $29/month and we offer a lifetime 30% discount to nonprofits) and our online tools. For instance, you can embed from Artwork Archive onto your website. 

    I'd be happy to schedule a demo!

    PS: We work with San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art, Stanford, Brown University, and many more organizations!

    ------------------------------
    Elysian Koglmeier elysian@artworkarchive.com
    Head of Growth
    DENVER CO
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-09-2021 12:07 PM

    The History Associates have put together this resource you might find helpful.

     

    https://www.historyassociates.com/resources-for-selecting-museum-cms/

     

    Personally, I believe there are software solutions more specifically targeted for art museum collections than Past Perfect, which was designed primarily for smaller history museum collections.

     

    Diane Gutenkauf
    dgutenkauf@hotmail.com
    Sent from Mail for Windows 10

     




    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Past Perfect

    Posted 06-09-2021 01:59 PM
    Hi Lesley,

    My small history museum uses PastPerfect for collections management, and I would recommend it. 

    Pros: established software developers with great support services; good price; you don't have to buy features you don't need, and when you do decide to buy them the price is still competitive with similar services; the option to have a locally-saved or cloud-based storage system, depending on your security requirements and IT needs; relatively easy to find staff who have experience with PastPerfect compared to other systems; doesn't require users or administrators to have skills in SQL or other coding knowledge to use right out of the box; if you decide to change systems later, most companies are familiar with exporting data out of PastPerfect; has a free demo of the software you can play around with with your own collections to see if it's a good match for your needs.

    Cons: PP5 (the non-cloud-based option) is a bit old-fashioned and clunky, both visually and operationally; the written manual is huge and not very helpful for folks new to the software; it's really built for art and history collections - you can make it work for archives and science collections, but it will take more work at the beginning to get it set up for that; limited character/language support means it is hard if not impossible to include non-Latin-alphabet words and names in cataloging information; the donor management side of it is a lot of work for small museums, but might not be robust enough for larger ones.

    Neutrals: Like any CMS, will require planning on how you want to use it - I recommend making an internal cataloging manual before you start any significant cataloging projects; video trainings are available for PP5, but not really for PPW.

    Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about our experience with PastPerfect!

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    Hilary Pittenger
    White River Valley Museum
    Auburn, WA
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    Original Message


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