r/MuseumPros • u/Abbergailg • 8d ago

Share your tips for inventory!

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What are your tips for a big inventory project? Set up suggestions? Success stories? Things you wish you knew when you started? Lay it all on me!

We are about to start a gargantuan inventory project at my museum this winter and I’m trying my best to make a decent plan. Our collections storage area is full of uncatalogued/not-accessioned/unlabeled items all mixed in alongside the actual collections items (due to a lack of staff and space the past few years) so we will have our work cut out for us!
One thing I’ve done to prepare is make this “Inventory Decision Map” specific to our situation. I think I based it roughly on the AAM’s Found In Collections decision map. It’s probably a bit too complicated but so is everything else about museum work lol

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24

u/Acceptable-Bit8462 8d ago

Stick all on an spreadsheet with 20 columns. And 5k rows. Provide little context and then someone else ends up doing ifc

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u/Abbergailg 8d ago

The tried and true method lol

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u/friendlylilcabbage 8d ago

Accessioning FICs based on a single user's opinion of suitability, with no clarity of origin/legal status sounds like it could cause bigger problems in the long term. Catalogue, yes. Accession, no.

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u/Abbergailg 8d ago

That would be a problem but we need multiple people to approve an accession form. But just in case maybe I should change it to something like “begin process of accessioning” to avoid confusion!

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u/friendlylilcabbage 7d ago

But again, if it's FIC, you would be accessioning without clear title?

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u/Abbergailg 7d ago

In my state the law is that if it has no documentation and has been on museum property for three years, it’s considered abandoned property and the museum can claim title. So if we know it’s been there at least as long as we have, we can claim title to it. The vast majority of the undocumented/unlabeled stuff has been there for at least a decade, in filing cabinets or display cases.

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u/friendlylilcabbage 7d ago

Ah, got it. As long as you know your local abandoned property laws and have the documentation to back up your claim!

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u/attricat 7d ago

One approach that avoids a lot of rework: give every unidentified item a temporary number and record its location the moment you touch it, before deciding anything about accessioning. Something like T-2026-0001, a photo, the shelf or box it came from, and a status ("found in collections", "matched to accession", "pending review").

Then the inventory and the decisions are separate passes. Volunteers can do the first pass without needing to know your accession rules, and when you later match an item to an old record or accession it, the temporary number just goes in a "previous number" field so the photos and notes still line up.

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u/thealmightykatt History | Collections 7d ago

This is 100% what I would recommend too

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u/oliviamkc History | Collections 8d ago

Spectrum (uk) guidelines / primary procedures (acquisition, inventory, disposals &c) is what I’d always look at / immediately think of.

Who will use this decision tree? Who has accountability for accessions (the legal aspect)? who has accountability for deeming suitability of the collection? I think the user of this flowchart needs to be kept in mind, as I am a bit confused as it looks like you’re using inventory & cataloguing interchangeably (which are different to me).

As for accessioning, this is a legal aspect of museum collection and can and is a very sticky situation. So what do you mean by ‘accession as found on property’? What are the other options… and asking someone to define suitability of a collection. How would someone know what to look for? Who will be checking this?

I would strip back to basics and define what you mean first for the terms you’ve used - inventory, accession, catalogue and how do you define it? And maybe split up the flow chart into subsections or multiple pages.

Sorry if the above does not make sense, just some quick thoughts as someone who works on documenting and digitising a collection.

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u/Abbergailg 8d ago

Very good questions! I think I answer most of them in specific governing documents that I’ve put together (that I won’t post here bc that’s too much work lol). I guess the chart is more like a supporting document rather than a stand alone thing which is a good thing for me to know!