How to Enhance the Museum Object Record with Immediately Available Information

This month’s series focuses on the enhancement of museum object data using “hidden” troves of information. Hidden is in quotes because the information exists and often is not hidden—it just hasn’t been gathered for inclusion in the museum Collections Management System (CMS).

This is because the information (and the field it corresponds to) falls outside of the minimum cataloging needed to meet best practice.

Data enhancement is a departure from normal operations, but it offers improved collection discovery and an increase in collection use. Last week, we considered the gaps in object cataloging and reviewed where the gaps live. This week, we’ll explore where sources of information currently exist and are available for immediate application to enhance object records.

Immediately Available Sources of Information

In a museum, there are many sources of information that could be applied toward object record enhancement. For today’s post we’ll focus on sources that don’t require much original research, and instead outline sources that could be easily incorporated into data enhancement work. The following are common and immediately available informational sources:

• Accession paperwork
• Articles
• Books
• Encyclopedic references
• Exhibit catalogs
• Previous card catalogs or inventories
• Scholarly work

Where to Find the Sources of Information

As helpful as these museum resources are, they are often dispersed and many staff may not know where they’re kept. For each source, here are suggestions for where to start looking:

Accession paperwork: These files can live in several places. The most obvious suspects for physical files are:

• Museum archives
• Registrar/Collection Manager office
• Executive Director office
• Object storage

There may also be digital files. In which case, access to electronic file storage will be needed. These files could live in a specific area of the server or cloud storage. The good news is that as long as you have permission to view those file types, you should be able to perform a search for them.

Articles, Books, and Scholarly works: There are a few places these works can exist. For the physical sources check:

• Museum library
• Curatorial office
• Registrar/Collection Manager office

These sources will also exist in digital format and can be accessed by the museum or local library catalogs and scholarly subscriptions.

Auction catalogs: These sources may be kept near or with the accession paperwork. They may also be referenced with an inquiry to the auction house.

Encyclopedic references: These sources are almost exclusively electronic. If a subscription is needed, they can be access by the museum library or local library.

Exhibit catalogs: If it’s an in-house publication, these can be accessed via:

• Museum library
• Curatorial office
• Registrar/Collection Manager office
• Exhibitions office

Previous card catalogs or inventories: If these exist there are two primary places to look for them:

• Museum archives
• Registrar/Collection Manager office

It may take a little bit of searching and inquiry to ascertain the location for each source. The good news is that once you find these sources you can locate and access them easily each time you wish to work on data enhancement.

Where to Apply the Information

The next step is to determine where this information is best captured in the object record.

Accession paperwork: Can inform the accession record, provenance, past purchase price, and condition.

Articles, Books, and Scholarly works: Can inform provenance, description, materials, techniques, style, and related items.

Auction catalogs: Can inform description, materials, techniques, style, and related items.

Encyclopedic references: Can inform description, materials, techniques, style, and related items.

Exhibit catalogs: Can inform description, materials, techniques, style, and related items.

Previous card catalogs or inventories: Can inform provenance, description, materials, techniques, style, and related items.

Conclusion

After the review of data gaps and an assessment of where to find immediately available sources of information, data enhancement work can begin. For a deeper dive into where additional hidden troves of information can live, tune in next week to learn where to find new information and consider its application to enhance object record information.

Additional Reading

• What Does Museum Data Enhancement Mean?
• An Overview of Common CMS Data Areas to Enhance
• How to Assess Museum CMS Data for Enhancement Opportunities
• How to Create a Plan for Museum CMS Data Enhancement
• How to Perform Museum CMS Data Enhancement