Dear Adrian, Thanks for raising this. In the UK, we tend not to have captured information about specific proportions of collections catalogued, and to what extent. Instead, we have developed a set of Performance Indicators for Collections Management which focus on outputs such as access to and use of collections and availability of expert knowledge in support of them.
The Performance Indicators are freely available at http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/collections-skills/collections-management-performance-indicators in case they are useful. It will be really interesting to see how other larger collections respond - in my experience, it tends to be a moving target. At the Collections Trust, we strongly emphasise putting in place appropriate procedures for accession (to stop the problem from getting worse) and then a managed and prioritised plan for retrospective documentation, at least to inventory level. We also find that projects, particularly aggregation projects like Europeana, have a positive effect in driving improvements in the quality of the recorded information, and the application of standards for things like terminology and rights clearance. I look forward to hearing how people respond! All best, Nick Nick Poole Chief Executive Collections Trust Tel: 020 7942 6080 [email protected] LinkedIn Join CT's Collections Management Group Visit Collections Trust online www.collectionstrust.org.uk www.collectionslink.org.uk www.culturegrid.org.uk Company Registration No: 1300565 Registered Charity No: 273984 Registered Office: Collections Trust, WC 209, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD > On 21 Jan 2015, at 07:19, Adrian Kingston <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all. > > I know there are lots of hooks around what qualifies as "cataloguing", what a > "record" is versus an "object" and even how to measure the size of a > collection, but can anyone point be to some recent > benchmarks/surveys/comparisons of percentage of collections databased (jeebus > I hate that word). Asking for a friend. Well, actually, asking for our > Assurance and Risk Committee. > > Museums Aotearoa include it in their annual survey > http://www.museumsaotearoa.org.nz/research#SectorSurvey, but I'm looking for > other institutions that are similar to Te Papa in terms of collections size > (eg circa 2-3 million items) and/or similar collections scope (we have the > full gamut: the national art collections, as well as, natural science, human > history, archives, photography etc) > > Any help would be great! > > Cheers > > Adrian Kingston > Digital Collections Senior Analyst > Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa > > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Visit the Te Papa website http://www.tepapa.govt.nz > The email message together with the accompanying attachments may be > CONFIDENTIAL. If you have received this message in error, please notify > http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/onlineforms/enquiryform.aspx immediately and > delete the original message. The views expressed in this message are > those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically > states them to be views of Te Papa. Te Papa employs strict virus > checking measures and accepts no liability for any loss caused either > directly or indirectly by a virus arising from the use of this message > or any attached file. > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > ______________________________________________________________________________ > > This email has been filtered by SMX. > For more information visit http://smxemail.com > ______________________________________________________________________________ > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: [email protected] > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: [email protected] To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
