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A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You. building an acceptable conservation module JP Brown Jessica A. Johnson DucPhong Nguyen. Introduction. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
building an acceptable conservation module
JP BrownJessica A. JohnsonDucPhong Nguyen
October 17, 2007
Introduction
Creation of a user work group resulted from a discussion between the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the NMAI on mutual progress on conservation development.
Set up meeting of Washington Metro area EMu users (and the Field Museum) to discuss the possibility of working together on standardizing requirements.
October 17, 2007
Purpose of user work group
Arrive at a core group of conservation tabs which will form a revised conservation module, rather than each institution sub-classing the current module.
October 17, 2007
Features of user work group
• Heterogeneous institutional backgrounds• Heterogeneous conservation specialty
backgrounds• International (but English-speaking)• Communication facilitated by email and
www.emuusers.org
October 17, 2007
Time line
August 2005: first meeting held at NMAI (Suitland, MD) to discuss
collaboration on a new Conservation module. Participants included: The Field Museum; NMAI; NMNH Anthropology; USHMM; Winterthur Museum
Results: Agreement on treatment work flow as focus for developing common requirements
October - November 2005: the group gathered in Chicago at the users meeting and
talked to other museums. High level of interest encouraged us to take the discussion public via emuusers.org.
V.1.0.3 specs were posted on emuusers.org V.1.0.4a specs were posted on emuusers.org
October 17, 2007
Time line (cont.)
May – September 2006: V.1.0.4b specs were posted on emuusers.org. This was
the final release for discussion. October 2006:
Next-to-final specs were released by KE. December 2006 – January 2007:
Testing of new Conservation module by NMAI March 2007:
Release of new Conservation module as part of KE EMu 3.2.03
April 2007: Implementation of new Conservation module at NMAI.
October 17, 2007
Initial findings of user group
Three sets of activities:
• Preventive conservation activities/condition surveys.• May be on regular schedule or one-off• Data level varies: ‘done’, ‘scores’, statistical
quantities.
• Condition/treatment records for individual objects:• Detailed text data, images, analyses.
• Management:• Additive quantities, requests, authorizations,
scheduling.
October 17, 2007
Stages of treatment/condition documentation
Conservation layer Management layer
Catalog/ownership data Request for treatment
DescriptionTreatment proposal(s) + estimated costs
As-received condition Sign-off/Approval
Treatment steps Cost/time of treatment
Post-treatment condition Actual cost
Recommendations/requirements Approval
October 17, 2007
Unclear issues
Non-digital assets (x-ray plates, etc.) Push/pull of dimension/materials data to Catalog?
Reduce redundancy. Granularity of measurement/requirement fields ‘Analysis’
Motivation for analysis varies (poison test, chloride/solubility test, compositional analysis)
Recording granularity varies from a detected/not-detected checkbox through to large numerical data files.
Relationship to Catalog Module ConsRec-Catalog is 1-1 or 1-m ? What about single treatments carried out on batches of
objects? What about multiple treatments on single catalog
record?
October 17, 2007
Non-digital Assets Tab
October 17, 2007
Push/Pull?
October 17, 2007
Granularity
October 17, 2007
Analyses
October 17, 2007
Problems of user work group :(
Slow (hard to maintain momentum) Not all users familiar with KE-EMu KE ‘draw the GUI’ design model No public KE-EMu ERD
October 17, 2007
Benefits of user group :)
Cost-effective for us and KE. Ease overhead costs (for KE, perhaps?) Standardize field names and design
Facilitate communications among different EMu customers
Simplify data exchanges (if any) Slowness can be a good thing.
October 17, 2007
Lesson learned
Don’t strive for unanimous agreement. Set a reasonable goal; even a 50% agreement is good enough.
Be flexible. Involve knowledge area experts!!! Don’t rely on technical
experts only. Cut through the chase: focus on commonalities. A time period spanning two user groups worked well for us
– one for public kick-off after the initial meeting, and the next for momentum and wider consultation.
October 17, 2007
NMAI Conservators learn about the Conservation Module
October 17, 2007
Collaboration to Win Them Over
Conservation had been using some kind of database since 1999
EMu provides a lot of information not previously available to Conservation
Conservation wants others to see our data Thought a lot about workflow Tried to make EMu screen entry as similar to old
database as possible Didn’t force changes – made collaborative
decisions with staff on screen layout and new tabs
October 17, 2007
Some facts…
Previous database was in SQL At time of final migration, there
were 10,000+ Treatment records Also migrated 900+ Treatment
images Currently has 10-15 users, up to 25
through the year
October 17, 2007
Record type
• Use Record Type to control tab switching so relevant tabs are displayed based on specific values.
October 17, 2007
• Common fields in both Catalog and Conservation.
• Compromise to collapse data during migration, rather than keep them parsed.
Compromises
October 17, 2007
• Document multiple types of authorization: curatorial and conservation.
Authorization layers
October 17, 2007
NMAI customization• Goals and Rationale address NMAI-specific data needs.
• Damage report, records a response to catastrophic event; revised from original Word document
October 17, 2007
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With time and practice, everybody’s happy.
October 17, 2007
Questions?
JP Brown, Associate Conservator, Anthropology, the Field Museum, [email protected]
Jessie Johnson, Senior Objects Conservator, NMAI, [email protected]
DucPhong Nguyen, CIS Project Manager, NMAI, [email protected]
