An Update from the Documentation Project Manager

As the Museum’s Documentation Project progresses, the Project Manager, Dr Aoife Cosgrove, fills us in on what she has been up to over the past few months.

Hello from behind the scenes at the National Print Museum!

I have had the pleasure of spending the last few months working to catalogue, digitise, and update the Museum’s collections data thanks to funding from the Heritage Council through the Community Heritage Grant. While this work is still ongoing, we want to keep you abreast of our progress since this project will benefit anyone who interacts with the Museum, whether as a member of staff, a volunteer, or a visitor. Those who attended my talk for National Heritage Week were treated to a sneak peek of my progress, and you can keep an eye on our social media channels to see more tidbits and insights.

The Museum recently acquired the collections management system Axiell, a tool which is revolutionising the way that we document our collections. The Axiell system allows us to create individual object records so that all relevant data for a single item can be kept digitally in one place. Through Axiell we can record an object’s movement history, track its condition, note its use in exhibitions, and much more. Axiell allows us to easily search our collections data for information and provides a safe and long-lasting place for us to record oral histories, provenance data, and print-industry knowledge.

I recently carried out the first mass import of data to our Axiell system to create more than three-hundred and fifty object records. We have added beautiful new professional photographs to each record so that the appearance of these objects can be appreciated by anyone who searches the system.

Over the next few months, we hope to integrate the data from Axiell into the National Print Museum’s website so that our collection can be searched from anywhere in the world. Watch this space!

We hope that you will continue to follow along with us on this journey as we make the Museum’s collections more accessible to all.