closing in on the target

I spoke with the representative from Cuadra who convinced me that their platform was basically too much power for the size of our archives. I have downloaded a copy of Filemaker Pro. It is a document management system rather than the larger content management systems I had been looking at. On the plus side it is much less expensive and is intuitive and easy to install. On the minus it has a document library template but not an archives template. It does not automatically understand hierarchical systems but you can teach it to relate items to one another. It can be customized to Dublin Core specifications. And it is only one upgrade away from easy desktop web publishing or intranet/server usage. It can also accommodate a user database so it can track who is requesting what.

I also found a scanner that I really like. It can scan letter and legal size documents and has built in OCR and PDF software. I will check out a few more for comparisons sake, but I think this is the one. I also wrote a draft of the survey section of my project.

Preservation Standards. As a City and Non-Profit hybrid organization the company should be following City standards for preservation. But without a central records authority each department handles their records with minimal guidance. I would like to see the company at least accession all of the inactive records into the archive. It would be a positive step that could lead to more in a more cohesive direction.

Finally some progress

This has been a productive week. I sent a reminder to the curators about the survey and went from a 1 in 9 response to 6 in 9. This is enough for me to begin writing up this section of my final.

I met with the person in the registrar’s office who is in charge of photo services. We discussed the content management system (ARGUS) which they use for the art collection and her wish that they also had a Digital Asset Management system. And I found that the frontrunner in my software search is from a different division of the same company that produces the ARGUS platform. I have contacted Cuadra for a free trial download of their content management system, and cost information.

           It goes beyond the scope of my proposal but if they decide to purchase a content management system it could be used for more than just the Brundage Archive. AAM has inactive records and photos from events scattered in different departments and in off-site storage. They have provided only rudimentary retention guidelines for departments. If they are going to get the most use out of the system they should create a central archive and have all of these records accessioned into it.

The run around

I started to feel this week that I just had too many software options. So, I went into the AAM IT office and tried to get a direct answer to what sort of programs I should be looking at. I asked if I should be looking at open-source or commercial. The IT director said “for a paper you should do open-source.”

“Would you ever allow open-source software to be installed on one of the museum computers?”

“No, we would never use them. They are for tech geeks.”

“So, I should be looking at a commercial program?”

“No, you will never get approval to purchase a commercial program. They can’t afford it.”

Now imagine 15 minutes of this.

I said “Okay, would you be willing to take a simple pdf of the finding aid and post it on the museum web-site?”

“No. That would be up to the web manager.”

The web manager who we just hired and doesn’t start until next week. Frustration.

I am leaning back toward OAC, and have contacted them for more information.

Life Cycle

The records I am working with are all at the end of their life cycle. The last one was written over 30 years ago. They are no longer useful for administration purposes and are kept for research and nostalgia.

I had a great meeting with the librarian/archivist from MOMA today. She gave me a few things to think about as far as access restrictions. For example we have architectural drawings in the collection but if posted online it is like saying here are the schematics to the galleries come and rob us. That wing of our old building is no longer standing but still it is an issue I had not considered. She also leaned toward more restrictions in general but they are also a private institution while AAM is property of the city.
She has also agreed to send my contact for some people at other city owned collections to see how they handle access situations. And she will send me some of the personnel hours formulas she used when creating the plan for her archives.
A very productive afternoon.

Trying systems

This week I have been looking at archival management systems. I am finding Lisa Spiro’s article on the subject very helpful. It is slow reading because I find myself taking lots of notes. I am also reviewing the comparisons on the archival software website http://archivalsoftware.pbworks.com/w/page/13600254/FrontPage .

I began by checking out Fedora and dspace. Mostly because these are the options that Lori covered in our class this summer. I think they would be an excellent upgrade at some point but since this archive has no experience with electronic finding aids or content management systems, I think this is just more technology than they can handle just now. My current front runners to help AAM get started are Online Archive of California, Archivists’ Toolkit, and Archon. The OAC wanted a completed application before being able to try their system. I downloaded a copy of the Archivists’ Toolkit but realized that it won’t work without MySQL or similar, the same with Archon. So, MySQL will be my next stop.

Archon has many of the features I am looking for, easy data entry, digital library module, accommodations for organizational hierarchy, and EAD, MARC, & DACS compliance. It does not generate reports but I think that can be addressed once the staff becomes comfortable with the electronic format.

Corporate Culture question

I take the corporate culture at AAM to be casual and collaborative. Perhaps it is because we are a non-profit it lends itself to that sort of atmosphere. Everyone is on a first name basis. As an example of collaboration all profits from the museum store go to support the programs of the education department. I think in the long run this will be an asset and generate goodwill among participants.

Lots to read

My work this week has been all about reading. Reading articles and reports, reading about copyright, reading how other institutions have implemented their digitization programs. I did take some time out from my reading to meet with the chief curator at AAM and discuss the issue of copyright in relation to the Brundage archive.

My questions about who holds the copyrights for the archive were met with a resounding “we just don’t know”, which is an expected answer. Based upon my reading it is pretty common not to be sure of who holds the copyright for archival holdings. Some repositories have spent large amounts of time and money to track down the copyright holders and obtain permissions from them. All of their searching resulted in a very small return on definitively determining the rights. They have solved this by just publishing the items to their website and in the unlikely result that someone complains they just remove the item.

This is the option that I suggested to the curator and he seemed agreeable. After all, publishing portions of the archive on the web is very unlikely to interfere with anyone’s livelihood.

As for this weeks question on the leadership style of the site supervisor: it is difficult to tell. He is the only librarian. I cannot see how he relates to subordinates. My overall impression is that he has a laid back style. He makes modest changes but does not aggressively pursue them.