Dear Colleagues:

 

In March, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center posted questions on ARLIS-L, SAA-L, and SAAMUS-L.  Our original message follows with summary responses below in bold:

 

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center is investigating how museum archives are inventorying and cataloging their collections.  If you work in a museum institution, we’d appreciate if you would take a few minutes to answer our questions below.

 

1. Do you use an archival database to accession and describe your archival collections?  If so, what is the name of the database?

28 responses, majority do not use an archival database

2. Do you use a museum collection management system to accession and describe your archival collections?  If so, what is the name of the museum collection system? 

27 responses, majority do not use a museum CMS

Is it used in conjunction with an archival database?

27 responses, majority do not use a museum CMS in conjunction with an archival database

3. Do you use your archival database to create finding aids for each of your collections? 

28 responses, majority do not use an archival database to create finding aids

If not, how do you create finding aids? Neither of these questions explicitly refers to EAD finding aids.

28 responses, half create by hand (mostly in Word) and half did not indicate another method for creating finding aids

4. Do you create collection level records for your archival collections in the library catalog?

28 responses, majority do create collection level records within library catalog

 

We have compiled the answers to our questions and posted them on: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14992802/Museum-Archives-Database-Survey

 

Our thanks to all of the individuals who took the time to answer our questions.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eumie Imm-Stroukoff and Elizabeth Ehrnst

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center

 

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Fax:  505-946-1093