PastPerfect Newsletter: February/March 2009 1. NEW! Collections Management Training CD 2. Upcoming training opportunities for PastPerfect 4.0 3. PastPerfect Featured User: Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, Oak Park, IL 4. Free Update for PastPerfect 4.0 1. NEW! Collections Management Training CD: A New Way to Learn PastPerfect! Have you ever wanted to bring a PastPerfect trainer into the comfort of your living room? Do you want to start volunteers on the right foot by sending them to training, but your organization does not have the funds to send everyone? PastPerfect Software now has the solution. PastPerfect Software introduces its first training CD, "Cataloging Your Collection with PastPerfect 4.0." This CD teaches basic navigation as well as processing collections from the moment a "man walks in with a box." Lessons include basic and advanced cataloging, attaching digital images/multimedia files to records, research methods, and tips for keeping your data safe. The CD gives you the opportunity to learn at your own pace, anywhere you want. The training CD costs just $39.00 total (shipping is included), and is available for purchase at our secure online store. Please visit our website at www.MuseumSoftware.com and click on "Online Store" from our navigation menu. Or you can order by calling our toll free number 1-800-562-6080. 2. Upcoming training opportunities for PastPerfect 4.0 Plans for our 2009 Training schedule are under way! Currently scheduled training dates are listed below for our online and regional training classes. Online Training Classes: Online Training: Cataloging your Collection with PastPerfect 4.0 Regional Training Classes: Denver, CO - March 9-10 Buffalo, NY - April 14-16 For more information about scheduled training classes, please visit our website at www.museumsoftware.com/training.shtml or contact our Training Coordinator, Jennessa Reed, by emailing training@museumsoftware.com or calling 1-800-562-6080. 3. PastPerfect Featured User: Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, Oak Park, IL Special thanks to Tiffany Charles, Collection Manager, for contributing this article! The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, established in 1974, operates two architecturally significant National Historic Landmark sites designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The first site is in Oak Park, IL and consists of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home (1889), which is the first residence that the architect designed for himself, and the attached Studio (1898), where Wright launched an architectural revolution in residential design. The Home and Studio’s exterior and interior graphically demonstrate the formation and evolution of Wright’s ideas for a new American architecture, the Prairie style. The second site is located in Chicago. The Wright-designed Robie House, completed in 1910, is one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture. The building was a catalyst for a revolution in domestic architecture, presaging many of the developments that would arise throughout the twentieth century. Both sites are National Historic Landmarks, managed by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust as accredited museums and serve over 100,000 visitors from around the world each year. Visitors to the two museum sites experience the buildings and collections through docent led tours. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has been using PastPerfect since 2003. Currently, the collections department is working on cataloging the entire collection on exhibit in the Home & Studio. This cataloging project includes detailed descriptions and condition reports, updates of all locations and attachment of new object images. The Scatter/Gather feature makes it easy to export the pertinent data and images to a remote computer, allowing for a great deal of mobility and versatility as catalogers move from room to room. Although PastPerfect is very adaptable and can be navigated almost effortlessly, there are times when technical or trouble-shooting support is necessary. For the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, the support provided by the PastPerfect team has proved indispensable. The staff is always so friendly, knowledgeable and eager to do whatever is necessary to answer a question or solve a problem. There are many innovative features and applications to recommend PastPerfect, but it is the support staff that makes it the number one choice for museum software at the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. For more information on the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, tours, the Robie House restoration or our programs, please visit www.gowright.org. 4. Free Update for PastPerfect 4.0 The Version 4.0E2 update has some great new features for contacts management. Are you tracking donations, dues and in-kind gifts for grant proposals, the Cultural Data Project*, or financial statements? PastPerfect Version 4.0E2 now has fields to help you specify revenue sources and restrictions. The new Revenue Source field helps you distinguish whether donations come from board members, individuals, corporations, foundations, government entities, parent organizations, or any source you set up in the field's Combo Box Pull-Down List. You can also mark dues payments with "Membership Dues/Fees" and in-kind gifts with "In-Kind Contributions" or any other source you specify. The Revenue Restriction field enables you to easily identify unrestricted, temporarily or permanently restricted funds. You can then create your own detailed reports on these payments using Report Maker. With Report Maker you can build reports with multiple output options, including printed column and form layouts, Excel and other worksheets. You can also create MS-Word, PDF or HTML files from your report, making it easy to find useful formats for board meetings and grant applications. This update adds "Paypal" as a payment option, brings your ten year summaries to 2009, and makes the 2009 payment fields available for your mail merge letters. E2 also has new features that enhance managing your collections. Add multiple prefix and suffix options to Dublin Core XML output To download your free PastPerfect 4.0 update, please visit the Software Updates section of our website at www.museumsoftware.com/softwareupdates.shtml. Detailed instructions are located on the Update Version 4.0 web page. Please be sure to back up your data first and close PastPerfect (including PastPerfect on all network workstations) before running the update. If you have any questions, please contact our Support Office at 1-800-562-6080 or email support@museumsoftware.com. Thank you for using PastPerfect! *Pennsylvania, Maryland and California currently have Cultural Data Projects that help standardize how organizations report financial information to funders. Participants only need to complete the CDP form once annually, and submit its data with grant proposals to partnering funders. The Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project administers all three programs, although each project has its website with state specific information. 5. Grants & Resources Although finding support for collections care can be challenging, it is still possible to find funding. State museum associations, historical societies, humanities councils, historical commissions, The Foundation Center, and the US federal government’s grants website (www.grants.gov) have resources to which you can turn. Some states like Louisiana are developing tools to help organizations find and successfully compete for grants. Other states are making reporting your organization’s financial information to multiple foundation funders easier through Cultural Data Projects. The Institute of Museum and Library Services offers Statewide Planning Grants to encourage cooperation between multiple organizations throughout states and territories. AASLH and other organizations are spearheading initiatives to increase federal funding for museums. Funding is available. It just may take a bit of leg work to find it. The State of Louisiana is developing online resources to help Louisiana museums find and successfully apply for grants. The website at www.doa.louisiana.gov/cdbg/SGMSabout.htm contains the State Grants Management Section mission and contact information. It also will have the Louisiana Assistance Resource Center, a research portal for grants. The Kansas Humanities Council offers Heritage Grants, which are “intended to encourage the preservation and study of local and regional cultural resources and to assist cultural agencies to develop stronger practices in maintaining and managing local heritage resources.” Matching grants of up to $3500 are awarded for collections care projects. The funds may not be used for software purchases; however participants are often able to find funding from donations to purchase software, then use that as the match. Successful proposals should include the use of a project consultant, schedule for completion, detailed budget, and plan for sharing project outcomes with the general public. With the exception of colleges and universities, any not-for-profit organization in Kansas may apply for a Heritage Program grant. In 2009, grant applications will be reviewed in the Summer and Fall. The upcoming deadlines for Project Outlines are May 8 and September 18, 2009. The Humanities Council website has more information, including detailed guidelines, past recipients, etc. at www.kansashumanities.org/grants/heritage/heritage.html or for more information, please contact: Dan Carey-Whalen The Kansas Museums Association offers grants to its member organizations. Grants of about $400 are awarded on a competitive basis. Applicants may apply for funds for any project expenditure, except routine operating expenses. For more information, please visit the Association’s website at www.ksmuseums.org/grants.html or for more information, contact the Institutional Project Grant chair: Deborah Barker As part of its Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action Initiative, IMLS offers a number of grants for collections care. American Heritage Preservation Grants are geared to small museums, libraries and archives to preserve specific items. IMLS is also distributing 1000 copies of its Bookshelf, a compilation of collections care resources including books, DVDs, online resources, and an annotated bibliography. Applications may be submitted to AASLH between January 5, 2009, and March 9, 2009, at www.aaslh.org/Bookshelf. 6. Tech Tip: Keyword Search The PastPerfect Keyword Search function provides a way of finding the information you need quickly. Keyword Search is an indexed search, meaning that a word list is created from the data entered into your catalog records. When someone performs a keyword search for a word, the search tool runs through the list, finds the word and displays the entries that contain that word. It is important to rebuild your keyword search index after you have entered data, so that the Keyword Search list has the most up-to-date list of words and count of entries that contain that word. You can rebuild the index right from the Keyword Search screen. To check the words that are listed in your search index, click on the "Setup" button at the Main Menu, then click on the "Keyword Search" button. At the bottom of the Keyword Search Setup screen, there is a "View Word List" button, click this to view your word list. This list contains words from your data and the number of times those words appear in the fields you have selected for keyword searching. To optimize the Keyword Search for your institution, you may choose which fields you want to include in the Keyword Search from the Keyword Setup screen. To do this, click on the tab for each catalog and place a check next to the fields you want to include in the Keyword Search. If you want to be able to search for dates using Keyword Search, you must add numbers to the "Valid characters to include..." field. You can do this on the Keyword Setup Screen by typing "-1234567890" in the "Valid characters to include in keywords in addition to a-z" field. From time to time, you may get a message indicating that there are words that appear more than 1000 times, and you may want to add these words to the excluded words list. For a list of these words, press the "View Word List" button and click on the "Count" column to sort by count. After checking your word list, if you want to add these words to the excluded words list, click into the "Do not include these words in keyword list" field, and type in the word followed by a comma (do not add any spaces). When you are finished making changes to Keyword Setup, click the "Rebuild Indexes Now" button. If you have not done this for a while, it may take several minutes. Please keep in mind that no other PastPerfect user on your network may be in the Keyword Setup screen when using this button. If you have any questions about this Tech Tip, please contact our Support Office at 1-800-562-6080 or email support@museumsoftware.com. In addition to newsletter Technical Tips, we also provide other online resources like Video Tech Tips and Frequently Asked Questions. Both resources are available at any time from our website www.MuseumSoftware.com under the "Support" heading. 7. Contact Information Address: 300 North Pottstown Pike, Suite 200; Exton, PA 19341 To unsubscribe: www.museumsoftware.com/newsremoveform.php |
|
|