The CatalogIt Team has been busy working on new authoritative classifications to allow you to catalog your collections in even greater detail! Our new Coin and Motor Vehicle classifications will enable you to comprehensively document all aspects of these specialized items. We are always making updates and strive to add classifications to enable our users to document their collections as completely and easily as possible. Try these new classifications and let us know what you think! Contact us with your thoughts at support@catalogit.app.
November 10th is coming up quickly! Register now at https://www.catalogit.app/community-connect and join us as we present a thought-provoking webinar exploring how museums can connect with their communities using their collections. Today, it is more important than ever for museums to engage with their communities digitally and use collections to inspire their community. Three industry leaders, Barbara Henry, Kathleen McLean, and Evelyn Orantes, discuss their experiences and share innovative ideas museums can implement to engage with their audiences– even when the doors are closed.
Interested in reading the thoughts of a museum registrar thinking through different ways to connect with their community through collections? Read this month's blog post!
In the first week of November, we will be changing how we handle login and authentication in CatalogIt. This change will make our platform even more secure and help ensure that your data remains private. This change will require you to log in to the system again using your existing password. If you can’t remember your existing password you can use the Forgot Password feature to reset it. This enhancement requires stronger passwords and will allow you to optionally enable a second form of identification (known as multi-factor authentication). Our plan is to enable this functionality on November 7th. We will provide a 48-hour advanced notification to avoid any surprises.
Fall has been a whirlwind of conferences and we were happy to have attended so many! We have one more to go in 2020 - The New England Museums Association Virtual Conference: November 16 - 20: Who Do You Think We Are Now? CatalogIt will have a booth in the virtual exhibit hall - come and see us! For more information on the conference, click here.
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Ethnographic objects are common in many museums and private collections. When documenting these collections, recording the cultural context is important. In addition to the aesthetic qualities, ethnographic objects are collected for the information they hold about the people who made them. Recognizing the importance of comprehensively recording these cultural items, CatalogIt has created an authoritative Ethnography Profile to record both the cultural region and the tribe/culture who made or used the items.
The “Ethnography” expansion panel is just below the “Made/Created” expansion panel and includes “Cultural Region” and “Culture/Tribe” Profile fields as well as a free text “Notes” field. These profile fields allow you to be as specific as possible when recording this important information. The Profile fields are pre-populated with a number of general cultural regions throughout the world. Recognizing that every collection is representative of very different cultural affiliations, each user is able to easily add to their own list of Cultural Regions by clicking the "+" symbol at the right side of the field. They are hierarchical, so you can create new regions that are sub-regions of larger areas or more expansive regions that are the “parents” of more specific regions. For example, ”Central California” is a cultural region within “California,” but you could add a more specific region of “San Joaquin Valley” that is within Central California.
Similarly, the cultural or tribal groups can be hierarchical- you can add new groups to your records and document whether they are included within broader ethnic or cultural groups. You can be as specific as you need to be to describe the region or culture and the cultural group. With the updated “Ethnography” expansion panel, organizing and documenting your ethnographic collections cannot be any easier.
Sitting on the shore of Oakland’s picturesque Lake Merritt, the Camron-Stanford Historic House is the City’s first museum. The meticulously restored 19th-century mansion takes visitors on a “time travel” adventure to the 1880s where they can explore daily life from the Victorian era.
The house regularly presents creative, thematic exhibitions throughout the year. This October, the House is presenting a spooky new online exhibition titled “Morbid Desire” featured on the CatalogIt HUB, which explores the theme of death, showcasing items from various institutions- from a Victorian-era mourning outfit to a handwritten “death manuscript” to a publication titled “Apotheosis: Ascending to Heaven.” Check out this dark exhibition and more on the House’s CatalogIt HUB page!
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My name is Terry and I’ve been working as a design consultant at CatalogIt for the past few years. While I am currently taking the year off from school, I’m normally studying fine arts and computer science at Tufts University in Medford, MA. In my free time, I play a lot of music, and spend time making a variety of experimental art, whether video, sound, photography, or physical media.
Pretty much anything that needs to be designed at CatalogIt is touched by me at some point - whether it’s our brand identity, a print ad for a museum conference, or a UX prototype for new functionality in the app - it’s my job to make certain that our product and its surrounding materials not only communicate successfully, but also feel polished and visually coherent. I recently finished designing a new login and signup that you will soon encounter in the app. I’m currently working on redesigning our company website, which will be up before the end of 2020.
As someone who is a passionate spectator of and participant in the world of design, I use CatalogIt to keep track of various objects and scraps that interest or inspire me. You can see my small collection on the CatalogIt HUB.
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