Hi, I'm a systems librarian, who works with digital collections at a small liberal arts college in the Chicago area. Two years ago, I was charged with implementing a management system for our small gallery, and CollectiveAccess 0.55 version was the best choice for us at the time. Since then, I've struggled to implement their 0.6 and I'm not happy with their underlying configuration model. Still, CollectiveAccess would let me complete my project, even though the resulting system may have serious usability issues. Our gallery's project includes conversion of files kept in paper with the following structure: We're going to enter descriptive cataloging, donor information, and the location record for the 2000-3000 items in our gallery. As we transcribe, I want to control using LC Name Authorities, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus for the medium. I would also like to start recording storage locations. The paper records are laid out with these fields: Accession/Item number Artist Artist Dates Artist Nationality Title of work Date of work Medium Measurements Inscriptions Condition (including frame, etc.) Catalog reference Donor Provenance Date acquired Conditions of gift Valuation (and reason for) Valuation date Special remarks Historical location record (repeats as necessary): Location Date Authorization I found CollectionSpace recently and the development looks pretty rapid. The 0.5 demo shows me the areas where my needs are met, and the my other needs seem to be covered by the non-functioning UI elements. I'm hoping you can help me with making the choice between CollectiveAccess and CollectionSpace. Here are some additional questions. What can you tell me about data migration into CollectionSpace? Also, I'd like to know what your take is on these options: * Implement CollectiveAccess and migrate the data to CollectionSpace * Do my data entry in FIleMaker and migrate the data The CollectionSpace functional requirements doesn't list methods for recording data about donors and gifts. Would that be under Valuation? When is delivery for that? Thanks. -- David Levinson Systems Librarian and Academic Technologist Library and Information Technology Lake Forest College Lake Forest, Illinois 60045

Hi David, Thanks for your questions. I left you a voice message today in the hopes we might follow-up by phone as well as this short reply via email. CollectionSpace v1.0 is scheduled for release in June 2010 and covers most of the fields you mention below. The exceptions are the valuation fields (Valuation, Valuation date), which are slated to be delivered with the Valuation procedure later in 2010 as part of our phase 3 efforts. Information about Donors lives in the Person/Organization Authorities, and is referenced in the Acquisition record via the Source field and in the Object or artifact record in the Credit Line field. I would be happy to walk you through this approach, if that is helpful. Information about gifts lives in the Acquisition record. The schema can be found here: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/collectionspace/Acquisition+Schema Also, you can experiment with adding acquisition records in the current version 0.5 demo which can be accessed here: http://www.collectionspace.org/update/CollectionSpace_05_Release_0 We can certainly talk about data migration; and there are any number of ways to approach it. In fact, four institutions are working on that very activity right now, so perhaps, we can put you in touch with someone to discuss that in more detail. I look forward to talking with you soon, Angela On 28 Apr, 2010, at 11:04, Levinson, David wrote: > Hi, > I'm a systems librarian, who works with digital collections at a > small liberal arts college in the Chicago area. Two years ago, I was > charged with implementing a management system for our small gallery, > and CollectiveAccess 0.55 version was the best choice for us at the > time. Since then, I've struggled to implement their 0.6 and I'm not > happy with their underlying configuration model. Still, > CollectiveAccess would let me complete my project, even though the > resulting system may have serious usability issues. > > Our gallery's project includes conversion of files kept in paper > with the following structure: > > We're going to enter descriptive cataloging, donor information, and > the location record for the 2000-3000 items in our gallery. As we > transcribe, I want to control using LC Name Authorities, Getty > Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and Getty Art & Architecture > Thesaurus for the medium. I would also like to start recording > storage locations. The paper records are laid out with these fields: > > Accession/Item number > Artist > Artist Dates > Artist Nationality > Title of work > Date of work > Medium > Measurements > Inscriptions > Condition (including frame, etc.) > Catalog reference > Donor > Provenance > Date acquired > Conditions of gift > Valuation (and reason for) > Valuation date > Special remarks > > Historical location record (repeats as necessary): > Location > Date > Authorization > > I found CollectionSpace recently and the development looks pretty > rapid. The 0.5 demo shows me the areas where my needs are met, and > the my other needs seem to be covered by the non-functioning UI > elements. > > I'm hoping you can help me with making the choice between > CollectiveAccess and CollectionSpace. Here are some additional > questions. What can you tell me about data migration into > CollectionSpace? Also, I'd like to know what your take is on these > options: > Implement CollectiveAccess and migrate the data to CollectionSpace > Do my data entry in FIleMaker and migrate the data > > The CollectionSpace functional requirements doesn't list methods for > recording data about donors and gifts. Would that be under > Valuation? When is delivery for that? > > Thanks. > -- > David Levinson > Systems Librarian and Academic Technologist > Library and Information Technology > Lake Forest College > Lake Forest, Illinois 60045 > > _______________________________________________ > Talk mailing list > Talk@lists.collectionspace.org > http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org Angela T. Spinazze' ATSPIN consulting 3270 N. Lake Shore Drive #5E Chicago, Illinois 60657-3921 voice: +1 773-281-1515 email: ats@atspin.com web: www.atspin.com