On 11/28/2017 4:47 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Mike L. posted: "It bothers me greatly that we don't have a record of our holdings. We should have pictures of each item, along with make, model, s/n and donor info, at the least. ... I urge people to move on this."
The VCFed board and I completely agree.
It's already underway. Adam has been our greatest asset on this project. For some sick, twisted reason that I don't understand :) he * enjoys * being alone in the warehouse and counting stuff. He already counted our different models of Apple, Atari, and Commodore gear.
There are five major benefits to having a proper inventory. In no particular order: we can buy artifact insurance, better evaluate the value of our assets, know what we can deaccession as fundraising, know what we have for exhibits, and clear warehouse space.
We also have to attack the library which is mostly boxed up in storage.
Jeff and I would love to arrange an inventory weekend when several members show up to work on this and nothing else. It will be important that everyone follow directions :) and not waste time on the minutiae of tiny bits. Over-inventorying is a trap to avoid. We needn't count every joystick, floppy disk, and power cable. Trying to do so would be functionally impossible. Instead, we're counting computers, major peripherals, and "box of TRS-80 software" or whatever the case may be.
Any thoughts on which collections management system will be used, and what metadata will be entered for each item? My personal favorite is the open source Collective Access, http://www.collectiveaccess.org/