|
KE EMu
Manage Your Collections
A primary obligation for a museum is the duty of care for its collections.
Museums must manage their collections, keep track of their objects, ensure they
are well maintained, securely stored, properly insured and appropriately
accessible.
EMu facilitate this through:
SPECTRUM processes
KE continues to support efforts to
standardise documentation in all areas of collection management. The Museum
Documentation Association's SPECTRUM standard is one of the most comprehensive
in this area. SPECTRUM is a guide to good practice for museum documentation and
contains procedures for documenting objects and the processes they undergo.
EMu's suite of management modules and
processes are conformant with the SPECTRUM standard.
Accessioning and deaccessioning objects
With EMu’s Accession Lots module you
document the arrival of a group of objects at your institution, some or all of
which may ultimately be accepted into the collection and thus fully catalogued.
An Accession Lots record is created for new acquisitions such as purchases,
gifts and bequests; it documents a summary of the objects in the lot and can be
used to schedule acquisition meetings to accept or reject each object.
Other details that can be captured by
the Accession Lots module include an actual purchase price for an acquisition,
date of receipt, accession numbers for objects (which can be automatically
assigned by EMu) and any rights and restrictions over the objects.
Deaccessioning an object results in
the object’s logical removal from the collection; for most users the
object will appear to have been removed from the Catalogue. Authorised users
however are able to retrieve deaccessioned object records, allowing audits of
deaccessioned objects to be undertaken.
A deaccession records:
- The date of deaccession
- A reason for deaccession (lost, stolen,
destroyed, etc.)
- Terms and conditions of the deaccession
- Authorisation details
 Top
Condition check
EMu’s Condition Check facility
documents an object’s condition, the date when it was last checked and by whom
and the date of its next scheduled check. A history of all condition statements
is maintained.
Conservation
Conservation work on objects in a
collection can be scheduled and monitored in the Conservation module.
Examination details, a description of the damage or other reason for
conservation treatment, details of the treatment performed and any associated
costs can be documented in this module.
The Conservation module tends to make
extensive use of the multimedia repository to record images and video of objects
before and after conservation work, as well as audio and written documents
describing treatments.
Incoming and outgoing loans
The Loans module tracks details about
incoming and outgoing loans, capturing details such as the borrower, objects
loaned, start and end dates, approvals, and associated costs.
Loan documentation, including a loan
agreement form to be signed by the receiving museum, can be generated from
within EMu and can even be scanned and attached to the loan record as a
permanent soft copy of the signed agreement.
External movements (Shipments)
Movements of objects into or out of a
museum are tracked in the External Movements module. A movement can be in
response to incoming or outgoing loans and object returns, external conservation
work, receipt of donations, etc.
Details recorded include the purpose
of the movement, authorisation, location to/from which an object is being moved,
date of the movement, courier, consignment details, customs broker, insurance
policy, any special handling or packing instructions, associated costs and
confirmation of receipt.
External Movements documents,
including packing slips and receipts on arrival/request to dispatch, can be
generated from within EMu.
Top
Events (Exhibitions)
With the Events module it is possible
to group objects for a specific purpose, perhaps to organise an exhibition, to
plan a research project, or any number of other purposes.
The Events module records the event
title, a description, credit line, organisers, funding arrangements and other
costs, intended audience, start and end dates, a list of venues to be visited by
the event (in the case of travelling exhibitions for example) and statistics
measuring the success of the event, and so on.
Loans can be associated with an
event, documenting objects sourced from external organisations, for instance.
Locations and internal movements
The Locations module tracks the
location of collection objects within the museum. When an object is moved from
one internal location to another its location record is updated with the new
location, the date, time and staff involved. A history of all movements for each
object is maintained.
EMu supports both fixed and moveable
locations. Fixed locations are used to document all of the valid places in which
objects may be located. They can be specified in a hierarchical fashion, for
example, building-floor-section-room-cabinet-shelf.
A moveable location, a Solander box
for example, is located in a fixed location, such as a cabinet within a room.
When the Solander box is relocated from one cabinet to another, the location of
all objects stored in the Solander box is automatically updated.
Details, such as location codes,
barcodes, dimensions and other location characteristics, can also be recorded.
EMu allows users to report on objects
stored at any location or on any level of a location hierarchy.
Valuation
The value of an object, the date of
its valuation, the valuing authority and the next scheduled valuation are
documented in the Valuations module. EMu automatically maintains historic
valuation information.
Insurance and indemnity
The Insurance and Indemnity module
documents insurance policies and related information for objects covered by
insurance and other forms of indemnity. Details include a policy number,
insurance company or indemnifying organisation, assessor, date of assessment,
total value covered, renewal date and a history of all claims.
Insurance details can also be
recorded for individual transactions such as loans, external movements and
exhibitions.
Top
Extensive Cross-Referencing
EMu’s collection management modules
directly cross-reference objects. If an object is on loan, for example, a record
in the Loans module will document details of a loan and which objects are
affected; authorised users viewing the object’s record in the Catalogue module
will see that it is on loan.
While most management processes
relate to objects in the Catalogue, there are many relationships between the
various collection management modules themselves: a loan being raised for an
exhibition, for example; external movements of objects in response to a loan; or
insurance policies for individual loans and shipments. In this case the various
modules directly cross-reference each other.
As all management records are held in
perpetuity a complete history of transactions is maintained by EMu and can be
viewed for one or more objects by authorised users.
Workflow Management
By adopting EMu’s sophisticated
workflow management capabilities you are able to specify your institution’s
various processes and assign steps to individual staff members, together with
commencement and completion dates. EMu has in-built email notification to alert
users to pending and overdue tasks assigned to them. Due and overdue process
dates and other critical dates such as loan returns, are identified each night
and a To Do List is emailed to relevant staff.
For each affected staff member EMu
also builds a web page of their To Do List for the entire, rolling week.
Read on for details about how EMu can assist you to:
See Also
More Information
To contact us for more information about KE EMu, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Telephone contact details can be found on the Contact page.
Instructions for downloading the EMu Help (which includes screen shots and
demonstrations, and comprehensive details about EMu functionality) can be found under More Information.
Top
|
About EMu 
