System Simulation

“Having a professional Collections Management System in CollectionsIndex+ has been of huge benefit, not only to our work in caring for and managing diverse collections but in facilitating public access to those collections both physically and online.

 

Strong location controls help us to locate objects for use in public programmes. We are able to export object lists, including images, from CollectionsIndex+ for researchers to make selections prior to their visit. Importantly, we are able to record these activities in CollectionsIndex+ and further improve the knowledge of the collections to share with the public.

 

The CollectionsOnline site allows us to highlight the collections and their stories in a layered and accessible way. The public are able to search the collections if they are interested in a specific topic or object. Alternatively, great use has already been made of the “Themes” and “Collections” pages that are easily created and managed within CollectionsIndex+ and allow our public to browse the collections even if they are not sure what to search for or where to start, allowing them to explore and develop interests in different parts of the collection.

 

The team has control over which records, including images, are accessible. Making records available on the website is straightforward and quick, which means the collections records that the public can search and access are updated regularly. There is always something new to see.”

Fermanagh & Omagh District Council
Sarah McHugh, Museum & Heritage Manager

“We have been impressed with CollectionsIndex+ since our first demonstration and continue to be very pleased with our decision to move forward with the system.

 

Having a professional Collections Management System in CollectionsIndex+ that can support both our archive and object collection has been a game changer for us in terms of how we document and manage the collection.

 

Starting with an empty system was a choice we took as we felt our small number of existing digital records did not hold sufficient detail to warrant a migration. While this necessitated spending some time after the system went live populating core terminologies and authorities adding these terms to CollectionsIndex+ is a straightforward process. We were able to create initial terms quickly and then start adding the first set of collections records. We will continue to develop and grow these term lists as we go.

 

Choosing to take the system out-of-the-box to begin with enabled us to work to our project timescales and budgets and to work out how the collections fit into existing standards.

 

The System Simulation team have been supportive throughout and we look forward to continuing this relationship as we develop our system further.”

Glyndebourne
Philip Boot FRSA, Archivist

“We recently migrated all of our records from several different spreadsheets as well as a legacy CMS to CollectionsIndex+. System Simulation have been amazing at offering advice and creatively coming up with solutions to ensure that CollectionsIndex+ was set up in a coherent way for us.

They have been very responsive to all of our queries and we have felt extremely well supported.

 

From a practical point of view, CollectionsIndex+ has transformed the way we’re able to manage and use our collections.

We are still in the early stages of completing our cataloguing but highlights of the system so far have been:

• Being able to quickly search for a group records according to key terms, such as date, production person, subject, object type etc.
• Location and movement control is much more efficiently managed than previously.
• Managing our image files simultaneously with the records is very advantageous, as is the option of including different media types.
• Cataloguing is very user friendly and intuitive.”