MANAGING MILLIONS: COLLECTIONS INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Like the collections themselves, museum collections information must be organized and maintained for the foreseeable future. In an age of changing technologies, this means that stewards of collections must be ready to update and retool collections information systems as those technologies and associated research capabilities and questions change. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History maintains millions of geological and paleontological specimens and their associated records. Standards and conditions for care of the physical specimens have changed through time but the more significant changes to best practice have occurred in the information management realm. Current information management systems for managing acquisition, loan, disposal and catalog records will be discussed, along with the “lessons learned” associated with developing those systems.