Cataloging Object Metadata into PastPerfect
To provide better organization of the museum collections, allowing for greater public access to the community?s historic resources.
$4,500,000 the first year and $6,500,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Funds are to be distributed through a competitive grant process. The Minnesota Historical Society must administer these funds using established grant mechanisms, with assistance from the advisory committee created under Laws 2009, chapter 172, article 4, section 2, subdivision 4, paragraph (b), item (ii).
Available upon request. grants@mnhs.org
For the short term, we expected that the project would allow the collection to be more accessible to staff and researchers. In recent months, researchers have reached out to us about twice a month to inquire about pieces in the collection, general inquiries, and requested for image permissions. In the past it had always taken the staff many weeks to respond because locating images and information took so much time. Now, staff can enter the name or title or object ID number, and if it is an image that is digitized a high resolution image will come up and be ready to be processed for the request. It was always an anxiety ridden process, now it's so simple to show many different images to people knowing that we already have license clearance and high resolution images. Additionally, with the Omeka website, we are receiving more requests from other Museums, curators, researchers, and estates than before. Much of it is because the form makes it easier for staff to be accessible and because there is information about the pieces readily available online. We anticipate that with more artworks online, we will be able to reach more people and provide the access to the collection in a way that we haven't been able to for decades.
The intermediate term is we hoped that the images would be a good tool for educational staff. Programs are still being created for the next year and in relation to new exhibition. There hasn't been an educational program created with the images yet. However, some images were used on out mobile platform during previous exhibitions. The M has a mobile platform that is an extension of the interpretation in the exhibitions and visitors can learn more about the piece, artist, or something related to the piece in the exhibition. We anticipate that when the M's permanent collection is on exhibit in the future that the website and digitization of the collection will be an essential asset to the interpretation.
For the long term, we hoped that this process would become a model for us to use going forward as we digitize the 4,500 works in the collection in the future. The digitization instruction manual that was created a through a Legacy grant in 2016 is being used today as a reference for defining metadata fields and standardized language. This grant has set a great precedent for our best practices of processing digitized images and metadata. We have a better flow of the process, naming convention that works for our Museum, and in keeping up with data entry management.
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org