askSam as a Museum Cataloging Tool

by Christine McGuire Gregg

Republished with Permission

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    Our county library system operates a historical museum in an historic old home. The collection consists of several thousand objects, photographs, and documents of which only a small portion are on display at any given time. The balance are stored in hundreds of boxes and on shelving units which occupy about one third of the entire building. This collection is quite active, however, because there are regular special exhibits of items in the collection. Further, documents, photographs, and other objects are frequently requested by local genealogists and local historians so we needed to be able to find things quickly and easily. The problem was that this large collection was managed by a part time curator with a very limited budget.

    The existing inventory of holdings could be most kindly described as rudimentary. There was a simple card file and no complete list of holdings existed as the last complete inventory had been done 15 years earlier. Even more important, we had no idea of the total value of the collection even though many items had an estimated value. This primitive system made it extremely time-consuming to locate specific objects and to maintain accurate information about where holdings were located at any given time. The prospect of having to provide a complete list of holdings for insurance purposes nearly produced a case of apoplexy because of the enormity of the task. At that point a decision was made to computerize the collection and, as one of the computer people, I got the job of deciding how to accomplish this task.

    We needed a database which was flexible and which could deal with the extensive descriptive notes. An every word index was absolutely essential because these historical items have so many different attributes which we might want to search for. However, some structure was also required as we wanted to record values, storage location, donor names, museum nomenclature, acquisition date, and other facts which readily fit into fields. There were also two other requirements. Volunteers would be used to enter much of the data so a simple entry form would be needed. Second, some of the material needed to be inventoried on site so we needed to use a portable computer. The problem was that all we had available was an obsolete 286 computer. However, once the data entry was complete, a Windows database was wanted for its ease of use. The museum curator had neither the time or inclination to deal with a program which was not very easy to use. I was familiar with askSam and knew it would be perfect for the job. Even better, it was also available in both MS-DOS and Windows versions.  

    The MS-DOS version of askSam was used for data entry on an old 286 laptop which had been donated to the library. Volunteers were able to go on site and inventory storage boxes and enter data on the spot. I designed a simple entry form and instructed volunteers how to enter data and edit it. Everyone found it very easy to use. The backup function in askSam also made it simple for them to make backups after each data entry session. The database became useful even as it was being created. When I showed the curator how easy it was to locate any type of information which had been entered, she began to query the database on a regular basis to find items. For example, we recently decided to set up a railroading exhibit. She went to the database and typed in railroad and came up with three pages of items and photographs nd their exact locations. Within an hour she had all the items out of storage and ready to arrange. Previously it would have been a frustrating all day affair just to discover what we had and she would have had to write everything down. Actually using the old system there was always a good probability that not all of the relevant items would have even been found because going through the cards was so tedious.

    After one year of data entry, the database was recently transferred to askSam for Windows and put it in the museum's new desktop computer. Then the fun began. Among the first reports produced was a master list of items and valuations complete with a total value for those items which had been appraised. This was perfect for insurance purposes. We also produced a list

of those items which needed to be valued. Next was a description of items which were missing, lost, stolen, or damaged. Then the database was sorted by storage location so an inventory of each storage box in each room could be produced and placed on location as well as in a master notebook. Because we had taken the time to enter where each item came from, lists of donors and what they had contributed were easily obtained. We also produced reports of  holdings related to some of the major families and businesses in the area for the use of historians and genealogists. Today the curator uses the 1atabase on a daily basis to locate historical and genealogical items for our patrons who frequently have come a long distance to use our unique resources.  She tells me that even though she is not very computer literate, that she can now find anything we have very quickly and easily because of the powerful, but easy-to-use search capabilities of askSam. In my opinion, askSam is perfect for this type of task and I recommend it very highly.

For more information:

Dr. Christine Gregg

Email:  graph-pr@centrecountylibrary.org

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