Museum of London Ceramics and Glass project
Objective 2. Reorganisation and development of the information about the collection
The aim of the information management and development work was to produce a comprehensive set of catalogue records, digital resources and supporting information which would reflect the regional, national and international significance of the collection, could be used and developed in the future as an authoritative internal resource and could be made accessible through the Web interface. Although the major emphasis was on the 24,000 objects to be held in the store, an additional 2000 objects located in the galleries and other parts of the Museum were included into the scope of the project and brought up to the same standard as the records for the stored objects.
The database records about the individual items were at a basic inventory level prior to the project. This contrasted to the richness of information about many of the items incorporated in a series of publications. The situation has been transformed during the project, by the combined efforts of the project team, students and volunteers, core staff and a number of external specialists. The records have been enhanced by referring to the publications and incorporating details from these sources and during the physical handling and examination of the objects by the project team and specialists.
The original plans for this work were revised to include an additional member of the team to co-ordinate the information management process. This worked extremely well, allowing other staff to concentrate on the handling, visual cataloguing and digital imaging parts of the process. This experience has been useful when planning similar projects such as Exploring 20th century London.
When the collection was removed from its previous store, the existing database records were checked and updated to include details of the boxes in which the objects were held.
In the nine months prior to the unpacking phase of the project, work began on upgrading the original records. This work included editing and standardisation, the development of subject records about the major categories of the collection, the development of publication records about the main sources and the linking of these publication records to the catalogue records for the objects cited in the publications. This work continued in parallel with the unpacking and has been completed in the two months after the close of that phase of work.
Introduction
Objective 1. New storage facilities and good physical access
Objective 2. Reorganisation and development of the information about the collection
Objective 3. Making the collection accessible through events, study days and on-line access