It’s Fall! What better way to start a new season than to clean up and document more of your collections? We’ve added two new classifications to help you to catalog even more of your important items! Use Audio Recording for your vintage album collection, your soundtracks, and other published audio. As a compliment to our current Coin classification, our new Banknote classification enables you to document the paper money in your collection in detail - perfect for organizing your historic foreign currency and US bills.
We have been busy adding new enhancements to help you catalog your collections more concisely. In addition to the current “Collection” profile, our new “Category” profile enables you to organize your collections in many different ways. While you are able to be very specific with your cataloging through use of the authoritative classifications, we recognize that you may want to organize your collections in ways that are specific to you, and with the “Collection” and “Category” profiles, you are able to do just that.
The “Collection” profile, which is available in CatalogIt Museum and Organization accounts, is a repeating profile that allows you to separate your overall collection into distinct groups that you create and assign. For example, you may have a named collection within your permanent collection called “Jane Smith Craft and Decorative Art Collection.” An item in that collection may also be in your “Craft and Decorative Art Collection.” CatalogIt allows you to include multiple collections to ensure you are identifying your collections as specifically as required.
The “Category” profile, included in all account types, enables you to classify your collection into categories and subcategories that you define. This is a hierarchical profile that you can use to create categories and related subcategories. For example, if you are a collector of vintage household goods like vintage crockery, you can create a category called “Household Goods” and a subcategory of “Kitchenware,” and a second subcategory of “Dinner Service” for cataloging your vintage soup tureen.
These are user-defined profiles. You can create as many as needed to ensure your collections are organized and categorized in ways that are of most use to you. Watch this video to learn more!
We know that getting your information out of CatalogIt is just as important as putting info in. We’ve had many users ask us how to produce standard Avery Labels with their CatalogIt data. See this video to learn how you can export your CatalogIt data and import it directly into any Avery Label template. Include both your data and QR Codes and utilize the template for the exact label you are using!
BPOC is a nonprofit technology collaboration that connects audiences to art, culture and science. We are excited to participate in Episode 8 of BPOC’s “Dreaming of a New Collections Management System" series on Tuesday, October 26th. In this episode, CatalogIt Co-Founders Dan Rael and Howard Burrows will share how they address the difficulty of getting data in and out of a CMS, discuss cloud environments (pros, cons, misunderstandings), and how CatalogIt works to capture the context of objects (i.e the stories around the objects, not just their data) and promotes internal and external discoverability across collections.
All of the BPOC sessions in this series are free and open to attend, and the session will be recorded for those who can’t make the live discussion.
We hope you can join us! Register today!
We’re excited that Museum Associations are holding conferences and gatherings again! Whether virtual or in-person, these programs are instrumental in professional development and networking with colleagues in the field.
CatalogIt is happy to sponsor these 2021 conferences and gatherings:
We will keep you posted on upcoming Museum Association Conferences!
The process of accessioning legally adds an item to the museum's permanent collection. Accessioned collections are held by museums in the public trust and therefore are subject to specific legal and ethical considerations. Consequently, museums do not accession every item they acquire.
How do museums decide what they want to accession? Best practices dictate that museums have a Collections Management Policy that includes an outline of specific guidelines for accessioning into their collections. Many museums also have a Collecting Plan listing the specific items or item types they are looking for (or not looking for) in the near future. Often the decision to accession an object is based on a combination of judgment regarding quality, relevance of the object(s) to a museum’s mission, and relation to other objects already in the museum’s collection. A conservation evaluation of the object(s), as well as the museum’s ability to maintain and preserve the object(s) are also considerations.
Learn more about the museum accessioning process, and how CatalogIt can help you streamline your procedures by visiting our MasterIt Resources page.
In case you missed our August Blog post, learn how to organize an estate using CatalogIt.
Located in the heart of downtown Napa, California, is the Napa County Historical Society. Founded in 1948, the organization is dedicated to the discovery, preservation, and presentation of the people and history of Napa County. The Society also operates the historic Goodman Library, the longest-operating library in California.
A visit to the Napa County Historical Society is bound to enhance visitors’ knowledge of California history. Take walking tours of downtown Napa and nearby historic cemeteries, sign up for training in conducting oral histories and archival documentation standards, or check out the robust virtual programs library.
The Napa County Historical Society is open five days a week and offers research services by appointment on their website. To explore their collections from anywhere, anytime, browse their archives, architectural drawings, photographs, and more on the CatalogIt Hub!
Hello! I’m Haley Twist, CatalogIt’s new Marketing Coordinator. I began working on the team in September after discovering CatalogIt this summer—I was immediately drawn in by the ways in which museums, historical and academic organizations, individuals, and more can digitize their collections with such ease, and make them discoverable to people all over the world.
For the last five years I’ve worked in the digital marketing space, specializing in helping start-ups and small businesses grow their digital presence and connect with their communities. I’m the happiest when working with organizations doing meaningful work in the world, so I’m thrilled to have recently kicked off this new adventure with CatalogIt!
Though my background is in communications, I also have a lifelong passion for the humanities. I was able to combine these two areas of interest while in grad school, where I earned my master’s degree in Religious Studies and researched the intersection of American religion, media, and the Internet.
I live in Los Angeles with my fiancé, Barry, and our three cats, Jackie, Rory, and Lou (we think human names for animals are hilarious). I collect books, all kinds of interesting zines, and vintage t-shirts, so I’m spending time cataloging my personal collection with CatalogIt and loving every minute of it!
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