A year (or so) after "go-live“ -

where to now?

Robin GreenRegistrar

Lancashire County Museum Service

Lancashire County Museum Service

• We currently operate 12 museums

– 4 “City/Town” Museums– 2 Country Houses – 2 Town Houses– 2 Textile Mills– 2 Maritime Museums

• plus1 Castle and 2 Roman Bathhouses• and a commercial Conservation Service

• Museums owned by 6 different bodies!

Lancashire County Museum Service

Where are we now? (1)

• Achievements so far:– IT network connections to all sites– Servers purchased– EMu installed and (nearly!) configured to our

needs– Web access via standard interface– All paid for by the LCC Education Directorate

(no cost to the Museum Service!)– Active support from Internal Audit

Where are we now? (2)

• Users access EMu via Citrix terminal server

• Data migration partially completed– Only mapped into selected fields– Data not cleaned yet

• Documentation Procedural Manuals written around EMu

• Most Curatorial staff trained

But!• (Very) Small part of newly-formed Adult &

Cultural Services Directorate• No empathy with museums – in contrast

with active support from previous Directorate

• Budgets under great pressure• Overall Service “Spend” £2.2M • Budget cut this year (no budget for IT!)• 1 site to close (reprieved for this year only)• 2 sites to be handed-back to owners in 2 years time

• Service Review this year

Where next?

• New Conservation Studio

• Legacy Data

• Backlog Documentation

• Natural History Collections

• Loans Management

• Website Development

New Conservation Studio

New Conservation Studio• Moving into building May - June 2006• Full commercial operation by September 2006• We have a business need to track:

• Object movements• Work progress• Costs

• The Manager wants to use EMu!• We need:

• The “new” Conservation Module and v. 3.1• To devise documentation procedures• To train staff in EMu procedures• All by 1st September!

Legacy Data• 43,000 Records

• Data Mapping– Many fields only in “Legacy” data (due to lack of funds!)– Deferred due to other pressures (Accreditation for 12 museums!)– Still need to map old data fields into EMu fields– Previous offer of clerical assistance from old Directorate may not

be open any longer

• Data Cleaning– Started with Parties (complete) and Accession Lots (nearly

complete)– Terminology control

• Getty AAT and TGN thesauri • Home-made thesaurus for specialist terms?• Lock the look-up lists – one day!

Backlog Documentation

• Accreditation Requirement– Large backlog of basic documentation (c.

100,000 objects)– Even larger backlog of location updating (c.

400,000 objects) – Limited resources - 1 day week all curatorial

staff?– Will not meet timetable set by Accreditation

panel!– Very limited possibility of more resources

• Volunteers?

Natural History

• Not started yet!

• Only 1 Natural History specialist• He also manages a site• But, it’s closing• We’re keeping him• So he should have more time for documentation!

Loans Management• Insurance requirements

– List of objects– List of movements

• External Movements– EMu assumes one central location– We have 12!– How do we cope with this in EMu?

• Object movement between sites– Involves transport – Required to list movements & values for insurers– How do we do this in EMu?

Website Development• Key objects giving flavour of each site

• Location shown on web page• Potential visitors need to know where to go• Only visible if object on display• Shows town + museum (1st 2 levels of location field only)

• Wish List:– Thematic approach (narrative based)– Exhibitions on-line– The money with which to do it!– Future (way in the future!) links to LCC mapping GIS?

Thank you for listening

Robin Green

robin.green@mus.lancscc.gov.uk www.lancsmuseums.gov.uk

+44 (0)1772 790830